


Second Chances

by Ruchira



Series: Quantum Fluctuations [3]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 84
Words: 176,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26751235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruchira/pseuds/Ruchira
Summary: AU, sequel to First Impressions. After Voyager's return to the Alpha Quadrant, Tom Paris asks B'Elanna Torres to fill him in on everything about her life he's missed while he was gone.
Relationships: Tom Paris/B'Elanna Torres
Series: Quantum Fluctuations [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946188
Comments: 63
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this is transferred [somewhat] directly from FFN to here, so any typos or mistakes I had in the first posting did not get corrected.
> 
> This is the sequel to First Impressions, which is an AU based on the last reality visited by canon(ish) B'Elanna Torres in Quantum Fluctuations. If you haven't read that, I definitely recommend you read it first, or this will make no sense. And since it is an AU, there are going to be some things that are consistent with canon, but some that are different (such as how and when Voyager returns to the Alpha Quadrant).

Stardate 54464.57  
2377  
Delta Quadrant

Lt. Tom Paris sat still for a long minute after the simulator finished running the program, surrounded by the darkness of the holodeck.

Well, that didn't go so well.

He sighed. "Computer, reset program, randomized inputs within parameters, and hold for my command," he ordered. A split second later, the program repopulated, displaying the bridge of Voyager, empty except for him in his usual seat at the conn, the setting annoying familiar after hundreds of times running through the program. The whole program from start to finish was only 47 seconds, but it was to prepare him for the most important 47 seconds of flying of his life.

It would either take Voyager home, or destabilize a cascading singularity enough to destroy the known universe. No big deal.

He took a deep breath. "Computer, start program in ten seconds." He flexed his fingers one last time, then perched them over the controls, ready to go as soon as the program started.

The inputs, randomly generated based on the parameters the Pathfinder program had provided them, were generous this time around, creating an artificial singularity—he initially called it a wormhole, but the physicists at Pathfinder went into far so much depth explaining why it wasn't a wormhole that he didn't repeat that mistake, lest he have to hear that monologue again—with almost a kilometer of maneuvering space on either side of the ship, and 47 seconds later, found himself at the end of the simulation after a successful flight.

As soon as the program paused at the end, the doors to the holodeck slid open, revealing Lt. Joe Carey. The chief engineer stopped a few steps into the holodeck and studied the display on the simulated view screen. "Successful flight," Carey observed.

"You missed the heat death of the universe two minutes ago," Paris said sourly, then shrugged. "I'm at about 90%," he said.

"Ninety percent is pretty good," Carey replied.

"I'd feel a little bit better if that other 10% was just failure, not death and destruction of everything known," Paris replied. "The wider you can get that singularity, the happier we'll all be."

"Pathfinder is pretty sure the 10% would just be a small black hole, not the end of the known universe," Carey said with an amused eyeroll. "But I'll keep that in mind." Paris registered just how exhausted his friend looked, and realized he probably looked the same. They had both been working fifteen to twenty hour shifts every day for the last three weeks to prepare for this jump. There had been over a thousand modifications that had had to be made in engineering and to the navigational controls, and between those and the simulations, there hadn't been much time for anything else. Including food and sleep. "We're at T minus 12 hours. The captain ordered all but a skeleton crew to spend that time resting. I volunteered to be the one to drag you away from here and make sure you get something to eat," Carey continued. Paris knew that what the engineer said made sense, but the more irrational part of his brain was telling him that the more he practiced, the better prepared he would be. Carey seemed to know what he was thinking and how to sweeten the deal, though. "I was running through the final diagnostics with the Pathfinder team on the data stream. We finished, but the transmission window will be open for another seven minutes. Torres is still on the line."

He jumped up from his seat quickly enough that the simulated chair spun around behind him. "Computer, end program," he ordered, already out the door and headed toward astrometrics.

He found the image of his wife still up on the screen, her attention down at her console. She looked up at the sound of the door in astrometric sliding open and smiled. "Joe said you've been running simulations non-stop," she greeted. "You look like it."

He couldn't help but smile at his wife's characteristic bluntness. "I've used up almost all my replicator rations on raktajino," he replied, only half joking.

"How have the simulations been going?" she asked.

"I'm at about 90%," he said, repeating what he told Carey. "If you can get Joe a good, wide singularity, I'd feel a lot better about the whole thing."

"Ninety is a lot higher than any of the test pilots at R&D could get," she pointed out. Her face tightened for a split second. "We're going to monitor your progress from about a light year away. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" she said forcefully.

"That's my goal," he assured her.

"That's good," she said. "Don't you dare die on me. I'm only getting married once, Flyboy."

His throat tightened at the once-familiar words, last heard almost seven years before. "Don't worry, I'm not planning on it," he managed.

"That's good," she said, her voice as heavy as his felt. "Because if you did, I'd have to go down to the gates of Gre'thor myself to kill you again."

He swallowed a few times before trusting himself to speak. "It's going to work, B'Elanna," he said forcefully. "It has to."

"I love you, Tom," she said. "And it's about time for you to start pulling your weight on this whole parenting thing."

He smiled at that, at the thought of his daughter he had only ever met through the data stream. "I love you, B'Elanna. I'll see you soon."

He reported to his duty station two hours before the scheduled flight through the singularity to run one last diagnostic, his father's safety lectures from when he was learning how to fly as a kid ringing through his head. Always check over your equipment, his father always said, and he always listened—until he got to his teenage years and thought he knew better.

He only made that mistake once. He wondered if that shuttle was still on the bottom of Lake Tahoe.

"Mr. Paris, Mr. Carey," Captain Kathryn Janeway said. "This is your show. Are you ready?"

*Affirmative, Captain,* Carey said from Engineering.

"Yes, Ma'am," Paris added cheekily. He was focused on his console, but could almost feel her slight smile.

"Janeway to all-hands," the captain said, opening a comm channel. "The next time I'll be addressing you, we'll be back home in Federation space. It has been my honor to have served as your captain for the last seven years. Mr. Paris, Mr. Carey, you have the conn."

Paris took a deep breath, and heard Joe doing the same eleven decks away. *Deploying singularity in five, four, three, two, one.*

The singularity opened. Paris took the first two seconds to scan the singularity; they were in luck, more than 500 meters of working room on either side of the ship. Not the widest it could be, but he had also never failed a flight with this much space. "Entering singularity," he announced.

Forty-five fairly anticlimactic seconds later, it was over. "Mr. Kim," Janeway ordered.

"Scanning," Ensign Harry Kim said from the back. "We are... exactly where we're supposed to be. We're in Federation space! And we're being hailed. By the Mackay."

"On screen," Janeway ordered, and then there was Admiral Owen Paris on the view screen.

"Welcome home, Voyager," he said. His eyes traveled down to his son before returning to the captain. "My team's already analyzing the data from the singularity," he said in response to Tom's unasked question. "We're a little over a light year out from your position. We'll be there in about eight hours."

"We'll leave the light on for you, Admiral," Janeway promised.

The ship wasn't moving, so there wasn't much for the chief helmsman to do; Captain Janeway had given him the time off, which is used to eat, shower and collapse hard on his bed. The next thing he knew, she was on the comm. *Lt. Paris, meet me in Shuttle Bay 1.*

"Aye, Captain," he said quickly. There would be only one reason for the captain to ask him to meet him in the shuttle bay, and for as much as it would be nice to see his father again after almost seven years, that wasn't who he was looking forwarding to seeing.

Paris and Captain Janeway stood on the other side of the force field for what seemed like forever, and then it appeared. The Mackay, which Tom knew he would never be able to hear the name of without smiling at B'Elanna's description of Owen's process of naming it: although small, it was technically a roundabout. Roundabouts were named after rivers. Pioneer was a synonym for Pathfinder. The Pioneer River in Australia had been briefly called the Mackay River.

She said it took him two weeks of pouring through documents about rivers throughout the Federation to come up with the name, and that mental picture had made him laugh out loud as he had read her letter.

And now it was here. His father's yacht. Complete with his "team," which as far as Tom could tell, was one engineer.

B'Elanna.

The shuttle bay door closed, and then the force field lowered, and it took all of his willpower to not run forward and begin pounding on the hatch until it opened.

And then it opened on its own, and for the first time in almost seven years, she was there. She was there, in his arms, squeezing him so hard that he was sure his spine was going to break. "B'Elanna," he said, and he realized that until that moment, he hadn't believed it was going to happen. He hadn't believed he would ever see her again, ever get to hold her again, to kiss her again, and the weight of the moment hit him hard. He kissed her with everything he had. "You did it, B'Elanna," he murmured. "You brought me home."

"We did it," she corrected. "Together. We did it together. It always works better when we work together." He smiled at that and kissed her again.

"Tom." He turned at the sound of his father's voice, ready with a smart greeting, but his words died on his lips.

Turned out, his father's "team" consisted not only of an engineer, but also a six-year-old. "Izzy," he managed, and it only took three strides before he was at her. He wanted to pick her up and twirl her around, but knew that for as central as she had been in his thoughts since before her birth, he was still little more than a stranger to her. Instead, he knelt down so they were at eye level. He pushed a stray dark curl behind her ear as she watched him, her hazel eyes slightly weary and definitely tired. "Hi, Izzy," he managed. "I'm so happy to meet you."

"Hi, Dad," she replied, and to his surprise, she launched at him, wrapping him in a hug that was strong enough to leave no doubts of her Klingon heritage, and the realization that he was holding his daughter caused him a shock that was almost painful.

"I've waited way too long to give you a hug," he finally said.

"Me, too," she replied. She frowned when they pulled away. "Why are you crying?"

"Because I'm happy to see you," he said. "And your mother."

"And Grandpa?"

He looked up at his father's barely concealed snort of laughter. "Grandpa, too," he said with a chuckle. For good measure, he gave his father a hug when he rose.

"Kathryn will take Izzy and me on a tour of the ship," his father said. "We'll meet up with you and B'Elanna in the mess hall for dinner in a couple of hours."

He knew what his father was saying and suggesting, and had no intention of arguing with him. "We'll see you then," he confirmed. He turned to leave, then turned back. "And, Dad? I really am glad to see you."

Paris didn't really know what to say as he walked his wife toward his quarters, so he went with his tried and true method of stating the obvious. "Congratulations on the promotion, Commander," he joked as the turbo lift took its sweet time to deck four. She chuckled and touched her collar, and the evasive way everyone had been referring to her for the last couple of months—by her first name, or just her last name without rank, or in the case of Admiral Paris, as "his team"—made a lot more sense. He just didn't know if it was to surprise him or spare his feelings.

"You noticed," she said, sounding amused.

"I always knew you'd outrank me sooner or later," he replied with a smile, and truthfully, it didn't bother him in the least.

"Technically, you've been a lieutenant commander for two years," she informed him. "Captain Janeway has been keeping the promotion boards up to date through the data stream. I think she's the only one who hasn't been promoted at least once in the last six and a half years. There's probably going to be a big joint ceremony at some point." She quirked a smile in his direction. "I know how much you love ceremonies," she said, amused.

"Oh, I love them," he said with mock seriousness. "It's been a long time. I'm not the same man you married."

"Thank Kahless for that," she joked, and then they were at his quarters.

For a minute, both stood there and stared at each other. "This is really embarrassing to admit," he finally said, "but I've been going through a bit of a dry spell. It's been six years, seven months, and twelve days since I've had sex."

She laughed, a real, genuine laugh he had been waiting six years, seven months, and twelve days to hear, and kissed him the way she did on their honeymoon. "I think we'll figure something out," she said with that glint in her eyes that he absolutely loved.

Afterwards, they laid in bed, and after he caught his breath, he twirled her hair in his fingers. It was shorter than it had been, and she was wearing it straight now, but it was still her hair, and he still couldn't believe she was there. "I need to know what it was like," he said.

"It'll get better with more practice."

"Hey!" he protested. "But that's not what I meant. Your life, the last six and a half years... I need to know what it was like."

"Tom..."

"This isn't me punishing myself," he assured her. "We've had a lot of time apart. Nothing will change how much I love you, but we both know the next few months will be hard. I need to know what your life has been like so I can know how to best fit back in it."

She looked ready to protest, but then relented. "It was hard," she admitted. "I was so angry at first. Part of me wanted to hate you. All of me wanted mourn you, but I was too busy with the whole universe going to hell to even do that."


	2. 2371

Stardate 48401.97  
2371  
Mars Station

_It was hard to see, and that darkness—dimmed lights, smoke, blown consoles—was almost more distracting to her than the constant klaxons of the red alert and the discordant beeps coming from almost every workstation on the bridge. "Hello?" she called out, squinting into the thick atmosphere, trying to make out shapes of bulkheads, chairs, people, anything. She had no idea what was going on, and that fact was scarier to her than the catastrophe that the ship had obviously just gone through._

Lt. B'Elanna Torres awoke with a gasp, bolting upright in bed. She blinked at the sudden change in surroundings and groaned. _Another nightmare_ , she thought bitterly as she collapsed back down, the second time she had been awoken by one in as many days. It wasn't the scenario that bothered her—a red alert, while adrenaline pumping, was hardly the scariest thing a Starfleet officer, even a station-based researcher such as herself, could face—but just how _vivid_ it was, how clear everything seemed to be, from the sights to the sounds to the smells, and how stubbornly it refused to drift away like any other dream.

"Computer, what time is it?" she finally asked, staring up at the ceiling.

 _*The time is 0453.*_ Torres groaned again, and knowing that she wouldn't be getting any more sleep that morning, resolutely threw off the covers and rolled out of bed. Her eyes fell on the empty other side and she sighed, quickly calculated days and weeks. _Five weeks today_ , she realized. Five weeks since Tom had left with _Voyager_ to pick up a Maquis crew in the Badlands. They were supposed to have completed their mission and returned to Deep Space Nine over a week ago, but they knew from the beginning that such missions didn't have predictable timelines. Still, she wished he would just come home already. This was almost the longest they had been apart since she visited his apartment on a whim in the middle of her second classman year at the Academy, and not even being able to speak on the comm just made it that much worse.

She made her way to the apartment's bathroom, stripping out of the tank top and shorts she slept in on the way, and studied her reflection for a long minute, something she had caught herself doing more recently. There still wasn't much change, just a slight rounding of her abdomen where before had just been muscle. "I'm blaming these nightmares on you," she said to her belly, feeling silly addressing a fifteen-week fetus—or Paris-ite, as her sister-in-law had taken to calling it—but chalked it up to yet another thing the pregnancy hormones were doing to her mind and body. _First nightmares, then conversations…_ She smiled slightly at the thought of what might come next. Nesting, probably, although that was much more Tom's department than hers. She'd let him pick out the crib and mobiles and color of the walls, because while all of those things fell under the category of 'things that need to be done' to her, Tom would enjoy each and every one of them.

A quick sonic shower later, she was back in the bedroom, fastening closed her uniform—which was beginning to get a bit snug, telling her that it might be time to switch to maternity uniforms—when her eyes fell on the red-shouldered uniforms hanging next to her gold-shouldered ones. She sighed again, taking another look at the bed to confirm that it was, in fact, empty, and again, just wished her husband would get home soon. She wasn't usually this sentimental—another thing to blame the pregnancy hormones on, she figured.

Still several hours before she usually appeared at her workstation, she set up her portable console on the table and headed for the replicator. She opened her mouth to order a raktajino, then remembering the words of both her hybrid obstetrician and his local counterpart on Mars Station, reconsidered, deciding she needed to add some actual food to that order. "Raktajino, hot, and banana pancakes with maple syrup."

They just told her to eat breakfast. They never said it had to have any nutritional value to it.

 _*Nutritional supplementation added, by order of Dr. Yamisuko,*_ the computer informed her before her food appeared. Her eyes narrowed at the words.

"Oh, he's good," she acknowledged in a dark murmur. She made a mental note to give him a piece of her mind at her next appointment.

If it changed the taste of the food any, she didn't pick up on it, her attention focused on the data from her last set of experiments and plans for her next set of experiments as she ate, and before she knew it, it was time to head to her workstation. She quickly tied her hair into a low bun on the back of her neck, the same hairstyle she had been displaying since her days at the Academy, and began the trek and transport to her familiar—sometimes more familiar than her apartment—workstation in the Warp Technologies Development Group at Utopia Planitia, nodding greetings to fellow officers on her way.

She had been on the _Voyager_ project right up until the ship left—with her husband in the helmsman chair—and afterwards, had been immediately transferred to the Theoretical Propulsion Group, which in her mind, was much more rewarding work. It was cutting edge engineering at its most cutting edge; while making sure everything on _Voyager_ had been functioning properly was a source of relief to her as a wife who was sending her husband on the ship, the TPG was actually coming up with new ways of making ships go faster, further, and more efficiently. It was pretty much what she had always dreamed of doing, and getting that posting as a lieutenant, jg… Well, that was more than she could have ever dreamed of. She had been excited to have any posting with the Warp Technologies Development Group, but the TPG was the elite of the elite.

Of course, it was also the hardest work to grasp, and more than once, the ramblings of one of her fellow group members about some esoteric theoretical physics theorem had left her with a headache for a week, similar to the one she had when they were finished with their weekly status meeting. Hoping it would fade once she distracted herself with work, she had a quick lunch and promptly positioned herself in front of her workstation, ready to get another analysis going.

She was still in the process of setting up her next experiment when the doors to the lab slid open, revealing Commander Rohder accompanying three Starfleet admirals. Torres' eyebrows shot up in amusement at the sight of one of them, but figured if her father-in-law wanted to take an official tour of the lab, she wasn't going to stand in his way, and continued with her experiment.

To her surprise, instead of doing the usual tour of the area with the words that Torres now had memorized, for the number of times she had heard Rohder give them in the last five weeks, they headed straight for her station. "B'Elanna," Admiral Owen Paris said as they approached, his face as serious as it always was when he was on duty, "Commander Rohder said we can use his office."

She frowned slightly, uncertain what the most junior member of the group could possibly add to a status briefing. "Yes, sir," she replied, not even registering the fact that he had referred to her by first name, something he never did when they were on duty. Strict professionalism at work was how Admiral Paris lived his life; it was that strict professionalism that caused the rift between the admiral and his son that was still mending.

Torres followed the commander and three admirals into Commander Rohder's office and was further confused when Rohder immediately left, closing the door behind him. "Sir?" she asked, directing the question toward Paris, the only of the three she even recognized. She didn't know what it was, if it was something in his face or something about the way he couldn't quite meet her eye, but alarms began going off that this wasn't a routine status briefing to the admiralty.

"B'Elanna," Paris said again, stopping to clear his throat. "This is Admiral Trigleth and Admiral Mayer." And suddenly she knew what this was about.

"No," she said definitively, shaking her head. "No."

"B'Elanna—"

"Don't say it," she said warningly.

"B'Elanna, I'm so sorry—"

"No, it can't be," she interrupted her father-in-law, feeling her last bit of self-composure fall away. "No. Owen, it was a three-week mission…"

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," one of the other admirals—Trigleth or Mayer, she couldn't care to distinguish them now—said. "I regret to inform you that the _U.S.S. Voyager_ was lost in the Badlands—"

" _No._ " She turned to Admiral Paris, a wild and panicked look in her eyes. "Owen, it has to be a mistake, he can't be…"

"There's nothing left of the ship, B'Elanna," he said gently, and she could see the world falling apart in his eyes. "It's just…gone."

"It can't be right," she argued. "Ships don't just disappear. If they were destroyed, there would be something. He can't be…"

" _Voyager_ 's official status is 'missing,'" one of the other admirals informed her. "And we're still doing everything we can to find her, but after a week of searching—"

"No," she repeated, as stubbornly and definitively as before. " _No._ You're wrong." She didn't give any of the three men a chance to say anything else before she was out of the room.


	3. 2371

Stardate 48401.97  
2371  
Mars Station

She didn't know where she was going; all Lt. B'Elanna Torres knew was that she had to _get out of there_ , get out of the room with the three admirals bearing news that was bound and determined to change the outcome of her entire life. She had to get away from them and get away from any reminders of the words they had just spoken to her.

Easier said than done. Mars Station wasn't that big. And for the last eight months—her entire married life—she had been living and working there with Tom. The apartment, favorite restaurant, favorite bar, friends' apartments…they were all places she shared with Tom, the man she had planned on sharing her _life_ with, the man that contributed half of the DNA to the baby she had inside of her. She couldn't go anywhere without being reminded of _that,_ and remembering that would only remind her of those words she had just heard. _And we're still doing everything we can to find her, but after a week of searching—_

Without knowing how, she managed to make her way to the one place on the planet that was uniquely hers, without any of Tom: the running trails. At one point in time, she had been a frequent visitor to the trails that started at the Station and went out onto Mars proper, back when she was a cadet who needed to run on the long weekends when she would visit Tom on Mars. Shortly after they were married and she was living on Mars, she regularly hit the trails, but as work requirements increased and time separated her more and more from her days on the track team, her visits became further and further apart.

She didn't bother replicating workout clothes—or even good running shoes—before she took off, trying to outrun her thoughts. But the further she ran, the faster and more furious the thoughts came, and before she knew it, she was running hard and fast because she was _angry_ , honestly enraged at the universe and anyone and everyone contained within. She was mad at Commander Rohder for admitting the admirals to her workstation to give such bad news, for leaving them there to talk alone and closing the door quietly behind him; at Admirals Trigleth and Mayer, for being the bearers of bad news; at Owen, for knowing before she did and thinking he knew how to handle the situation; at the Maquis, for running off into the Badlands; at Captain Janeway, for requesting Tom's help in piloting _Voyager_ ; at the Cardassians, for creating the Maquis problem in the first place.

At Tom, for getting himself lost and possibly killed.

_Don't you die on me, Flyboy. I'm only getting married once._

Just the thought of the words she always spoke to Tom before he headed out for a test flight—and again, right before _Voyager_ left dock, not to be seen again—caused her to pick up her pace even more.

Eight months. They had been married for eight months. That was less than one Mars year. They hadn't even experienced all the seasons together.

She couldn't believe they never would.

She slowed to a walk when she realized that she had been crying, and then just about lost it, trying to catch her breath from her run and between her sobs. He had said she wouldn't be doing this alone. He had _promised._

No. He hadn't promised. Tom didn't make promises; he had always made that abundantly clear, the adamant words of a boy who had had one too many promises broken by Starfleet schedules and obligations. It even made it into his wedding vows: _I'm not going to stand here and promise you that I will stand by you forever and will by your side as long as you live, because I don't know if I can. But I am going to promise you that I will always try my hardest to do just that._

The one promise he had ever made to her, and while she honestly believed that he had done just that, she couldn't get over how angry she was. He had gotten on that ship and disappeared, leaving her alone—pregnant and alone—on Mars. He had told her she wasn't going to be doing this alone!

She had run further than she anticipated, and for someone who had been doing as little running as she had lately, and in uniform, and fifteen weeks pregnant, she knew she didn't have the energy to run back. She briefly debated requesting a beam-out to the head of the trails, and then decided against it. It was a nice day out, and there were still few people out. Walking back could give her the time alone she desperately needed.

Unfortunately, it also gave her too much time to think, and again, the more she thought, the angrier she got. She was starting to believe that Klingons had only two stages of grief: denial and anger. And she was currently experiencing them at the same time.

When she got back to the head of a trail, she was surprised at how close it was to a familiar coffee shop, one that was uniquely Tom's and not hers; it was where he went to get work done when he needed to avoid the distractions of the Test Pilot Division and their apartment. She had only been there once, and it was years ago. Even though she knew it would be filled with those memories she had been trying to so hard to avoid, she found herself walking to it without knowing why. For a few long minutes, she stood just inside the door, looking around the small space and thinking of how much impact that place had the events that unfolded from the point she had last been there. Finally, she headed over to the replicator. "Raktajino, hot," she ordered. "Cancel that," she said a second later. Dr. Gault encouraged her to limit herself to one caffeinated drink a day, something she usually scoffed at, but she figured the baby had had enough stress for one day and there was no need to add excessive caffeine to that. "Raktajino, hot, decaffeinated," she said instead. It pretty much ruined the point of raktajino, but there were more important things than Klingon coffee.

She sat at the same table she sat at last time, a booth by one of the large front windows, and could just see Tom sitting across from her, a bewildered expression on his face as she apologized for how she had acted during her entire plebe year and how much work she had created for him as the company commander. It was the fall semester of her second classman year, during a break between space walks and the Junior Survival Strategies course that almost cost her her life, and she had been on Mars to interview for a short training course and decided on a whim to see her old company commander while she was on the planet.

She smiled at the memory of how she had unintentionally interrupted a dinner date, but then the smile faded as she remembered the conversation and everything that had come after. If she hadn't stopped by his apartment, if they hadn't had that talk in that coffee shop, none of what had come after would have happened. He wouldn't have requested a reassignment to San Francisco during her hospitalization, wouldn't have been there when she needed someone to vent to about feeling so weak during her rehabilitation, they wouldn't have had the chance to fall in love and get married.

Eight months. They had had eight months as husband and wife.

She couldn't believe it, and didn't want to believe it, but she knew on an intellectual level that it had to be true, that Tom was truly…gone. They didn't send two admirals to talk to the wife, no matter who her father-in-law was, until they were fairly certain that 'missing' meant 'dead'. It wouldn't be official, not for another two years, but barring some sort of miracle, she would officially be a widow in two years' time.

At the age of twenty-four. With a toddler.

She had only drunk half of the decaffeinated raktajino, but found she didn't have an appetite for it anymore. She rose from her seat, recycled the mug and the remaining coffee, and left the coffee shop.


	4. 2371

A week had gone by since Admiral Owen Paris had appeared at the Theoretical Propulsion Group lab with two other admirals, and Lt. B'Elanna Torres still found herself trying to grasp the idea of this new normal she had found herself in, one that somehow included a pregnancy without including Tom. In that week, she had another obstetrics visit with Dr. Yamisuko, where he frowned disapprovingly of her weight loss— _"You're in your second trimester now. You should be gaining half a kilogram a week, and you've lost two since your last appointment."_ —which got her angry response that he should see how much weight he would gain when faced with losing a spouse. He dropped it, but judging by the message from Dr. Gault that appeared the next morning, decided to take it to someone with more authority. She ignored that message, just as she had been ignoring all the messages that had come in during that week. She couldn't deal with sympathy, not from anybody, not right now.

The only thing she still had was work, and she immersed herself in it, putting in longer hours at the lab than she ever had before, mostly because everyone she worked with was too afraid to tell her to go home. She didn't know what she would have said to them if they had tried; would she have pointed out that she no longer had someone to go home to? Be honest and say that work was the only thing that kept her from screaming at the top of her lungs or putting her fist through a wall? Try to convince them that she cared more about her experiment than her health, her baby, her missing husband?

She had had a headache for the better part of two days that she was trying to ignore through work as she set up another experiment to test the reaction speeds of a warp core to the new dilithium substitutes being created elsewhere in at UP. She was about halfway through with the vector analyses needed to create the experiment parameters when her vision suddenly went dark, and the next thing she knew, she was on her back in the infirmary. "What happened?" she asked, her voice sounding thick to her own ears.

Dr. Yamisuko appeared in her line of sight. "How are you feeling?" he asked, not answering her question.

"Confused," she replied, trying to sit up. His hand stopped that idea.

"Relax, Lieutenant," he encouraged her. "You passed out at your workstation. We're still trying to figure out why. Did you have breakfast this morning?"

"Yes," she informed him, annoyed at the continued questions of her eating habits. Seriously, didn't they have anything better to talk about at the Mars Station infirmary than how much one pregnant lieutenant ate? "And dinner last night," she continued, sure that that would have been his next question.

"Hmm," he replied, studying his medical tricorder. "Your hormone levels are fairly erratic. Since you're the first pregnant hybrid patient I've seen—"

"When can I get back to work?" Torres interrupted, this time successfully sitting up. Dr. Yamisuko looked surprised at the question.

"I've already arranged transport to Starfleet Medical," he informed her. At the look on her face, he quickly added, "Dr. Gault thought it would be a good idea for you to be under observation for a few days."

"A few _days?_ " she echoed in disbelief. "I can't spend a few days in the hospital! I have work, there are experiments that need to be done—"

"You're sixteen weeks pregnant," Dr. Yamisuko interrupted. "You have a baby that is depending on your continued health and safety. You can't afford to be putting off medical care for your work."

Torres flushed at his implication that she was putting her work before her child, before she realized that that was exactly what she was doing. "A few days," she acknowledged through clenched teeth.

Little did she know just how many days those 'few' would be.

* * *

The medical transport to Starfleet Medical was uneventful, except for the realization about halfway between Mars and Earth that this was the second time in her life that B'Elanna Torres had been on a medical transport to Starfleet Medical. During the first, she had been in stasis and nobody knew if she would survive the trip or what would happen when she arrived. This time, she was fully awake, and while fully confident that she would survive the trip, she still didn't know what would happen when she arrived.

It came as no surprise to her that Owen Paris was waiting at the hospital when she arrived. _Guess patient confidentiality has a different meaning when your father-in-law is an admiral_ , she thought with a sigh. Fortunately, they whisked her off to a treatment area before they had the opportunity to say a word to each other, and she didn't quite know what to make of how relieved that made her. After his son, Owen Paris was one of Torres' favorite people to talk to. Even though she hadn't exactly acted that way the week before.

Dr. Gault did a lot of 'hmm'ing and 'ahh'ing as he studied Torres' test results and vital signs, surrounded by his usual group of adoring residents and medical students. Knowing the hybrid obstetrician's usual gruff manner, Torres was sure it was his medical knowledge they adored, not the man himself.

He soon ushered them out of the large room, securing the lock on the door after the last left before he turned to face his patient. For a brief second, there was an expression akin to sympathy on his face, before he just said, "Welcome back, problem child."

"The _only_ reason I'm here is because you pressured my usual obstetrician to put me on the transport!" she shot back. "Believe me, if I had my way, I'd be back at work by now."

"No, you'd be back on the floor after passing out after you threatened physical harm to your 'usual obstetrician' if he didn't release you," Dr. Gault replied. "Usual obstetrician," he scoffed. "I've been seeing you since you were a cadet."

"I was a cadet less than a year and a half ago," she shot back, even though she had been seeing him since she started at the Academy.

"And you've only been under Dr. Yamisuko's care for eight weeks, so I guess I still win that round." He took a seat on the stool in the treatment room, and Torres steeled herself for more bad news. In the five and a half years she had been his patient, the only other time Dr. Gault had sat down during an appointment was when he was explaining that if she and Tom wanted to have children, it would require a permanent Klingon mating bond that would make it impossible for her marry again if anything happened to Tom.

Thanks, Dr. Gault. Always a pleasure.

As it turned out, this conversation had a lot to do with that previous one. "It's those pesky Klingon hormones again," he began, before sighing and rubbing his forehead. "I really didn't see this coming."

"See _what_ coming?"

"We knew that the biochemical reactions started at the time of bonding would be critical to fertility and the ability to carry a fetus to term," he said. She remembered that conversation in great detail, remembered repeating it to Tom in his apartment when they were still engaged and trying to figure out if they wanted to have kids or not. "I didn't anticipate that the continued presence of the male parent—"

"My husband," Torres interrupted. "The 'male parent' is my husband. Tom."

"Right," Dr. Gault agreed before sighing again. "The production of the hormones that assist in pregnancy—the ones I'm sure you're quite acquainted with by now—require continued boosting, for a lack of a better term, of pheromones. Specifically, your husband's pheromones. A poor analogy, but an analogy nonetheless, for lack of a better one, is the increased sex drive in human women during pregnancy."

"We are _not_ talking about my sex drive," Torres said emphatically. That was not a conversation she was ever comfortable having, not even with her obstetrician.

"No, we're not," Dr. Gault agreed. "We're talking about the fact that you passed out at work this morning because your body is out of whack because your husband is gone."

She flushed at the word 'gone', thinking it to be one of those polite euphemisms for 'dead', before she realized that as far as Dr. Gault was concerned, gone on a mission had the same implications for this pregnancy as gone and dead. "So what do I do?" Torres asked. "I wish I could make Tom come back, I really do, but—"

"But Starfleet Command isn't optimistic that that's going to be happening," he finished for her. He softened, which scared her more than anything else that had been going on the last week; Dr. Gault was never soft. She doubted he was soft with his own children. "I know you're going through a lot right now," he said, his voice gentler than she had ever heard. "And I know the last thing you need is one more thing to think about and worry about. But we're going to figure this out. Between me and Dr. Hrom, the hybrid endocrinologist, we're going to make sure that you and your baby make it through the rest of this pregnancy without any problems."

 _The baby_. In all of her rapid thoughts since Dr. Gault had sat down and started talking, she had forgotten that those hormones he was talking about were necessary for the baby's development. "The baby—"

"Is fine," Dr. Gault assured her. "Just a little bit of excitement, not much more than you give it when you insist on a second raktajino of the day." He waited for any other questions, and when she didn't ask any, gave her a thin smile and stood from the stool. "I know you have some family here waiting to see you. I told them to sit tight until we get you into an antepartum room, which should be within the hour. Then do you want me to send them in?"

She knew what family he was talking about, the only family who would be there: Tom's family, her in-laws who she had been avoiding for the last week. After her grandmother died the year before, the only contact she had with her own family was through her half-sister Navi, and she doubted the eleven-year-old would be here in the middle of a school day. "I guess I should see them," she said. Dr. Gault nodded once, not in agreement or disagreement, and headed for the door. "Doctor," she called out, stopping him. He turned, a questioning look on his face, and she bit her lip, not sure if she wanted to ask the next question or not. "The baby," she said. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

It was an agreement she and Tom had; she wanted to know when they found out they were pregnant, he wanted to be surprised. They compromised on finding out together when he returned from the _Voyager_ mission.

Asking without him there was as close as she could get to acknowledging that he really was dead.

Dr. Gault knew the reason why she didn't already know the answer to that question, and again, the look of sympathy was there, but gone just as quickly. He smiled slightly at her. "It's a girl," he answered. "You're going to have a daughter."


	5. 2371

The parade of people coming and going from Torres' hospital room in the antepartum department was too much for her. In addition to the doctors—many more than were necessary for her care, she was sure—nurses, and medical students, there were more visits from family—the Paris family—than B'Elanna knew how to deal with. Normally, she didn't mind being around Tom's family, but when they were still dealing with their own grief over the loss of a son and brother was not when she would want to see them. She still hadn't figured out to deal with her grief, and couldn't handle theirs as well.

Of the parade of people, Torres was surprised to find that her favorite visitor was her sister-in-law Nicki. Before all of this, she had only had passing interactions with the younger of Tom's two older sisters, and always with other people around. B'Elanna had always found her slightly flighty and never thought she had anything in common with the civilian pediatrician.

Turned out that someone who focused on the bright side of things was exactly what Torres needed.

Dr. Nichole Sanders didn't try to pretend that all was well—B'Elanna had gotten so good at reading Tom's emotions that it wasn't hard to see them in his sister—but she didn't dwell on it, either, unlike Alicia, who always looked like she was seconds away from falling apart, or Owen, who seemed to think it was his job to be everyone's rock of stability and tried too hard to seem unaffected. Nicki said things the way they were and managed to joke about something Tom had done or some of his stranger personality traits without becoming sad. Without saying anything, she reminded B'Elanna that it was okay to remember Tom.

Even though the thought of having to _remember_ him was still so strange that it didn't feel real.

The treatment that Drs. Gault and Hrom had come up with as a temporary measure until they could find something better seemed to be doing the job of keeping the levels of hormones standardized—Torres felt like her emotions were more in check than they had ever been—but had the side effect of leaving her very drowsy, sleeping between twelve and sixteen hours a day. For someone who did just fine on four hours of sleep a night, and never got more than seven, it was quite the change.

Of course, when she complained about it to Dr. Gault, he had tried telling her that the medicine was just trying to make her catch up on the sleep she had been missing her entire life. She had rolled her eyes, but had been too tired to come up with a witty response.

* * *

There was a new presence in her hospital room when she awoke an unknown number of hours later, a tall, dark-haired Betazoid in the teal uniform of the sciences, one gold pip on her collar. With that uniform and that rank, she looked exactly like a medical student, which Torres was sure was the point. "You didn't need to come here," Torres protested to her former Academy roommate. "Shouldn't you be in class?"

Ensign Reyana Srani finally looked up from her PADD and arched an eyebrow in a way that made Torres think that there must have been a few Vulcans in Reyana's xenovirology graduate program on Alpha Centauri. "I had final exams yesterday," she replied, "which is why I did not come sooner. You should not have had to be alone."

Torres looked away as she adjusted herself into a seated position, still trying to wake herself up. Just about the only benefit she could find from sleeping so much due to her medications was that they somehow kept her from dreaming and experiencing that same nightmare that had haunted her slumber since the week that _Voyager_ was lost, the one where she was standing on the bridge of a ship somewhere, the lights dimmed and the red alert blaring, confused and disoriented and alone.

She blinked aside thoughts of the dream as she returned her focus on her Academy roommate. She knew how difficult it must have been for Reyana to be there; Navi had tried visiting a few days before, but she barely got a few steps into the room before her eleven-year-old mind and still immature telepathic powers, combined with all the emotions B'Elanna was experiencing, got the better of her. She barely managed to stammer out an apology before running from the room.

After four years of living with the oft-volatile half-Klingon cadet at Starfleet Academy, Ensign Srani had a little bit more practice blocking out most of the negative emotions, and sure enough, when Torres faced her again, she saw the familiar tightness around her former roommates eyes, a sure sign that she was straining to keep her own emotional balance. "I was alone by choice," Torres finally replied to Srani's statement. "The Parises keep asking if I want someone to stay with me, but… I can't even figure things out for myself, and they…" Her voice trailed off, not even knowing how to continue that sentence. "The only person who knows how to make me feel better isn't here," she finally said.

"I know," Reyana said softly. "Have you talked to Dr. Bayrote about it?"

B'Elanna shook her head. "I haven't seen him since last time I was on Earth, right after Tom and I…" _found out we were going to have a baby_ , she thought but again couldn't vocalize. The pain of knowing that she was going to have to raise that baby—that girl—alone was still too raw, too many conversations with Tom telling her that she wouldn't be doing just that still ringing through her head. "He asked if I wanted him to come up after I got here. I said I'd comm him when I was ready."

"It cannot hurt to talk," Reyana suggested, and B'Elanna knew that she wasn't volunteering herself for the part. Although as telepathic and empathic as any other Betazoid, the virology graduate student found other people's thoughts and emotions largely uninteresting and failed to see the appeal in playing the role of counselor or confidant, much to the surprise of everyone at the Academy who had their preconceived notions that all Betazoids are naturals at it. The other two girls who lived in their room during their plebe year managed to alienate Reyana very quickly by trying to talk to her about their problems in more detail than any roommate would ever want to know. "How is the baby?" Reyana asked after they again lapsed into silence.

"Dr. Gault said she's doing well."

"She?" Reyana asked with a smile. B'Elanna found herself nodding and smiling as well.

"It's a girl," she confirmed. Her smile became sad. "Tom didn't say anything either way, but I think he wanted a girl. He told Owen that it would be fine by him if no one else ever knows the pressure of being a man in the Paris family."

Reyana chuckled. "I would be just fine not having a girl for the same reason. Family obligations and family traditions are not things I wish upon a child. Especially if those are obligations and traditions of _my_ family." Reyana's older sister was heir to the First House of Betazed and the role as Betazed's representative to the Federation, but rebelled against the idea of serving in either position, creating strife within the family and endless conflict between Representative Srani and both of her daughters. Reyana was under the constant hope that her sister would just stop whatever it was she was doing and accept her position in the family, mostly to keep herself out of that same position. "Are you okay?" Reyana asked softly.

"You know the answer to that," B'Elanna said, surprised that she was only resigned and not angry. "I'm not okay. My body is rebelling against being pregnant without Tom here, the medications that are keeping that from being a problem keep me from being able to do any work, I can't stand to be around my in-laws, I'm angry beyond belief at Owen because I don't know who else to be angry at, and my husband is gone. Missing, dead, I don't know, but he's _gone_ , and I just don't know how to do this without him." She looked down before looking back at her old roommate. "This is so much worse than last time," she said, referring to the coma that left her physically weak for months after it was over, and the depression she went through while dealing with that. "It took Tom to make me better then. Who's going to help me this time?"


	6. 2371

Knowing that she had been putting it off for too long already, B'Elanna commed Dr. Bayrote, her hybrid psychiatrist, as soon as she woke up the next morning, and just as she suspected he would do—and hoped he would not—he immediately cancelled all of his scheduled patients for the morning and made his way to her bedside.

"Good morning, B'Elanna," he said pleasantly, his bright green eyes wide. Not for the first time, B'Elanna reflected on the fact that the hybridology department at Starfleet Medical had relatively few hybrids. Dr. Zalun, the neurologist, was half-Betazoid, and Navi's mother, one of the psychologists, was half-Betazoid and half-Vulcan, but they were the only ones she knew of. Dr. Gault was married to a Bajorian and they had four kids, but he himself was fully human; Dr. Hrom was Centauri; and Dr. Bayrote was fully Hyshua.

"I don't know how good I'd say it is," she grumbled, trying hard to be angry with him but knowing she was failing. In addition to being so friendly all the time, Hyshuas released a pheromone that buoyed the feelings of people around them. Unfortunately, it was only a temporary fix, wearing off as soon as they were no longer in proximity, but it definitely contributed to Hyshuan being known around the Federation as the happiest planet in the quadrant.

"I understand," he said, and even though she had wanted to bite off the heads of all the people who have said that in the last few weeks, she felt like maybe he did understand. She didn't know if that was a result of his pheromones or his telepathy, though. "You said you're ready to talk?"

And she did, going into much more detail than she had with anybody else, with even her personal logs, describing her anger, her uncertainty about raising her daughter alone, her frustrations with the medications, her inability to work and her concerns that her job would no longer be available, and most of all, her incredible confusion about the state of Tom and the rest of the _Voyager_ crew. "I don't understand," she said with a frown. "I know I should be grieving, but... It just doesn't feel like he's dead. I don't know how to explain it, if it's the bond or I'm just in denial, but... I don't know."

"The bond between you and Tom is chemical, not telepathic," he gently reminded her.

"I know," she said quickly. "And I don't prescribe to the idea of soulmates or anything like that. Rationally, I know ships don't disappear without leaving some sort of debris, and so I wonder if there was a wormhole or a fold in space, but the ships that investigated didn't find anything that would lead them to suspect an astrologic phenomenon."

"Do you think proof of the ship's destruction would help end your denial?"

"I don't know," she said honestly, again with a frown. "I feel like it should, but I think that even if I saw a nacelle or a deck plating, that I would still feel like he's coming back. It feels so different from denial, and I don't know how to explain it. I was in denial when my father left, and I still remember how that felt."

"You were a lot younger then," he reminded her gently. "Your neural pathways weren't fully formed."

"I know," she said softly, remembering how she felt, how she asked her mother every day if her father was coming home that day, how it took her an entire Kessik summer to realize that he had never written, never commed, and that he wasn't going to be coming back. Even after that, though, she still had fantasies about what she would do or say when he came back to find her.

And then he did come back into her life, in a way, and she found that she wanted nothing to do with him. At all.

"How is your pregnancy?" he asked, changing the subject away from her denial, and against her will, a slight smile ghosted across B'Elanna's face.

"I can feel her kick sometimes," she said. "I've been able to for a few weeks."

"And how does that make you feel?"

She thought about that for a second. "A little scared," she admitted. "My mother raised me mostly on her own, and..." She didn't know how to describe where the failings were. She knew that her mother had loved her, but her way of showing it often left something to be desired. "She was too strict," she finally said. "I don't think she understood that I was my own person, not just a piece of her, and I worry that I'll do the same thing. I think that's why I thought Tom and I would be good parents together—he would let them have fun and let them be their own people, and I would keep them focused." She smiled again as she rolled her eyes. "As if any kid of Tom's would be able to focus," she scoffed. "I worry that I'll want too much out of her, that I'll push her down a path that maybe she doesn't want to go down. And I worry that I won't see that I'm doing it until it's too late, like it was with my mother."

"Have you thought about seeing your mother?" She blinked in surprise. He knew how she felt about her mother, about the chasm between them that had existed since she left for the Academy - since before she left for the Academy - about the lack of words between them. "You are about to become a mother," he reminded her. "You have a point of commonality that you've never had, a point of understanding. I'm sure she didn't want to push you away, just as you are afraid of doing the same with your child."

"I feel like she'll say that she told me so," B'Elanna said softly. "That she'll say that all human men are the same, that Tom did to me what my father did to her."

"But you know that they're not the same."

"I do know," she said with a nod. "But I still don't know how to deal with her perceptions."

"You can always explain how incorrect they are."

"You're making my mother out to be much more reasonable than she is," B'Elanna said warningly. Dr. Bayrote smiled gently.

"As I said, you're about to be a mother," he reminded her. "You have a common point of understanding, common across all parents, that worry that you're doing something wrong and that your child—or you—will be harmed because of it. Even though you don't know your daughter yet, how would you feel if she left your life because of some perceived failure on your part?"

And for the first time in her life, B'Elanna Torres felt like maybe she had misjudged her mother.

* * *

It took another two weeks before Dr. Gault and Dr. Hrom synthesized a medication that would keep her hormone levels safe and stable enough for her and her baby—at least for the duration of the pregnancy—without leaving her drowsy, and after a few more days of observation, they announced that she was safe to be discharged, as long as she followed up with them regularly. Knowing she had no choice, she agreed, if only to get out of that damn prison of a hospital room.

Her first order of business after changing out of her hospital gown and into some comfortable civilian clothes, was to call Commander Rohder at Utopia Planitia. _"You're looking well, B'Elanna,"_ he greeted.

"Thank you, sir," she replied. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to finish my write up of my last experiments."

He waved aside her apology. _"We're a team here,"_ he reminded her. _"It wasn't a problem."_

His comments about the team reminded her of why she was calling. "Sir, I requested a transfer to the R&D division at Starfleet Engineering," she said hesitantly. "It was an honor to work with the TPG, but—"

 _"It's already taken care of,"_ he interrupted. _"I understand that you have a lot on your plate, medically, if nothing else. Being close to Starfleet Medical is the best decision. Commander Johansen is looking forward to meeting with you."_

"Thank you, sir," she said honestly.

 _"We're all hoping that you consider coming back to Utopia Planitia at some point,"_ he continued. _"You brought a lot to the table here and did a lot of good work."_

"I hope I get the opportunity," she said with a nod.

 _"Keep in touch, Lieutenant,"_ he said in a faux-commanding tone that made her smile. He didn't do 'commanding' all that well. _"I expect to be getting a birth announcement in a few months."_

"You're on the list, sir," she said with a smile. "Thanks again, sir."

Alicia was waiting right outside the door when B'Elanna was done, ready to escort her to the Paris home. B'Elanna said that she would start searching for an apartment as soon as she could, but Alicia said that there was no rush. If B'Elanna knew her in-laws, which she most certainly did, they weren't going to be letting her move out anytime soon. She'd be lucky if her daughter didn't leave for college from Tom's old bedroom.

Dinner at the Paris house was pleasant, with both of Tom's sisters and their families—the Wylands now with a newborn—there to welcome B'Elanna home. Even though Owen had removed the chair where Tom usually sat, however, they all still felt his absence acutely, all waiting a few beats after a light-hearted comment for him to add his particular brand of humor, all feeling the disappointment when his voice wasn't there to be heard.

B'Elanna wondered if it would ever get easier. She didn't know if she wanted it to.

Several hours after they had finished eating and Nikki's family had returned to Colorado, B'Elanna found herself wandering Tom's childhood house, and as she often did when she had a lot on her mind, she ended up in Owen's study. The admiral glanced up when she entered, a sad smile crossing his face. "We're really glad to have you here, B'Elanna," he said. "We all just wish it was under better circumstances."

"So do I," she replied softly. She had automatically put her things in Tom's room when she had come in from Starfleet Medical, but was now dreading going back into that room, not sure how she would be able to fall asleep on that bed without Tom there with her.

She knew the next thing she had to say wouldn't be easy to say, or to hear, so she did it quickly, her words coming out in a rush. "I need to go to Qo'noS," she said. "I can't thank you and Alicia enough for being my family, but I need to find my mother." She swallowed the sudden thickness in her throat. "I need to tell her that I understand, that I know why she raised me the way she did. I need her to know that I've forgiven her."


	7. 2371

Lt. B'Elanna Torres wasn't surprised at all that Admiral Owen Paris had had someone—probably his aide, a snotty full lieutenant who thought that being an admiral's aide put him in a position of power over just about everyone else in Starfleet—do the legwork into finding Miral Torres. She had left Kessik IV shortly after B'Elanna did, which was the one thing she actually knew. She had spent a few years working in the Mekro'vak region before returning to her alma mater, the Imperial Klingon Academy, as an engineering professor. To the best of Starfleet's intelligence, she was still there, in First City, and since it was the middle of the academic year in Qo'noS, there was no reason to believe that she wouldn't be there.

Even though Torres had just started at Starfleet Engineering, and nothing that she had worked on with TPG was even remotely cleared to be shared outside of the Federation, Commander Johansen had gotten her on the list of officers who would be traveling to Qo'noS to attend an engineering conference.

At least she would have something to do if her mother had no interest in seeing her.

Her pregnancy had advanced to the point where she could no longer hide it nor wear her normal uniform, and as she discovered within minutes of stepping off the transport on Qo'noS, there were few things more novel on the Klingon home world than a pregnant half-Klingon in a Starfleet maternity uniform. Never comfortable with attention in any context, she was immediately put on edge. "Am I missing something here?" Lt. Robert Jay asked quietly, looking around at the people staring at the group.

"They've never such blond hair on such a skinny guy," Commander Johansen said sarcastically. "Don't be an idiot, Rob." He turned to Torres. "We'll just go straight to the conference center and get checked in, and take it from there."

She nodded, not looking at him or anyone else. It was pretty easy to see Jay's discomfort, and Johansen seemed a bit put off as well, but the attention didn't make her concerned for their safety; it made her angry. It reminded her of the attention she got growing up on Kessik IV and the attention she got when she started at the Academy, neither group accustomed to seeing Klingon ridges. Apparently, Klingons were no more accustomed to seeing ridges as faint as hers.

She seemed to be destined to never fit in, and for the first time, she wondered if her daughter was destined to the same fate, to the same second glances, to the same blatant stares and whispered questions.

Torres had thought that it might take a little bit of searching—and a lot of steeling her nerves—to find her mother, so she was especially surprised to find her as soon as they entered the conference center. _"SoS,"_ she said, so caught off-guard that she slipped into Klingon. "What are you doing here?"

Miral looked amused at the question. "I am one of the organizers of this conference," she replied. "The better question is, what are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for you," Torres said bluntly, and again, her mother appeared to be amused.

"It seems you have succeeded in your mission," she stated dryly. Torres suddenly remembered why it had been almost five years since she last spoke to her mother, all of the frustrations and annoyances that were still new when she arrived at the Academy now returning to the surface.

"Forget it," she snapped, turning away. "Enjoy the conference."

"Wait," Miral interrupted, and there was something in her voice that made Torres do just that. She stopped and turned back to her mother, raising her eyebrows challengingly. "There is a restaurant in this conference center. Go upstairs and get cleaned up. We will meet there for dinner."

Torres initially bristled at the words and how they were delivered as an order. Even after more than five years in Starfleet uniforms, she still didn't do orders well, probably because that was always how her mother had spoken to her, in orders. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that there was no reason to think this was any easier on her mother than on her. She was an adult now; there was no reason to fall back into the patterns she had had as a teenager challenging everything her mother said. "I will see you there in half an hour," she said instead. Miral nodded in agreement.

Thirty minutes later, now freshly showered, her hair down and curly and brushing past her shoulders, and in a tunic and leggings that accommodated her pregnancy just fine, she entered the restaurant, giving herself a few seconds to adjust to the dim lights that seemed to be universal in Klingon settings before she spotted her mother.

She took a seat on the bench across from Miral. "So you graduated from that school," Miral began. "I was not sure you would."

Torres gave a sarcastic chuckle as she took a drink from the glass of water. "You and some of my professors," she said dryly. She figured one dinner wouldn't be enough time to discuss the demerits during her plebe summer, much less that appearances in front of the disciplinary board or her fight just to maintain an even keel after her hospitalization her second classman year. "I was stationed at Utopia Planitia after graduation. I just moved back to San Francisco for an assignment at R&D for Starfleet Engineering."

"You became an engineer," Miral said. "That is not surprising."

"No, not really," Torres agreed. "I'm pretty good at it, too."

"Also not surprising." They paused their conversation to order; Torres was surprised to discover that she not only remembered enough Klingon to order, but also remembered enough about Klingon food to know what she didn't like. Which was most Klingon food.

They stuck to lighter topics while eating, such as competing on the track team and Miral's work as a professor. She didn't ask about B'Elanna's pregnancy, which surprised Torres and made her slightly on edge.

They were sipping raktajino after their dinner—the real thing for Miral, decaffeinated for Torres—when Miral finally asked the question Torres was waiting for. "Why did you come now?" she asked. "And do not tell me it was the conference, because I know you are not presenting."

Torres took a long drink of her raktajino before answering. "Because the thought of my daughter not speaking to me someday because of some slight, real or imagined, already hurts, and I haven't even met her yet. I can't even remember anymore why we aren't speaking, and continuing this because we're both stubborn is just…stupid."

Miral seemed to think about that for a long minute. "I did not know what to do with you," she finally said. "You had too much of me to be like your father, and too much of your father to be like me. By the time I realized that, it was too late." She took another drink of her raktajino. "I do not regret your father leaving," she said a minute later. "We were a bad match, and that was not good for you. I regret that you did not benefit from a human role model. I thought that you would get that by staying on Kessik IV, but that was not a good place for either of us. I do not know where would have been better." She paused again. "You live on Earth. Last I heard, your father does as well. Have you been in contact with him?"

"No," B'Elanna said flatly. To her surprise, her mother raised her eyebrows.

"Perhaps you should," Miral said simply.

"Why?" B'Elanna scoffed. "I have nothing to say to him."

"He is your father."

"You hated him."

"I loved him," Miral corrected. B'Elanna's surprise must have shown on her face, because Miral scoffed. "I loved him enough to marry him," she reminded her daughter, "and was married to him for ten years. I loved him enough to have a child with him. He was not strong enough to live with two Klingons and we were a bad match and marriage was far from our best decision, but we never hated each other. I still do not hate him, because I would not have had you if we had not been together."

B'Elanna scoffed. "I seem to remember you saying just the opposite when I was a teenager," she pointed out. Miral waved that aside, but didn't counter her words. B'Elanna knew she wasn't imaging the screaming matches in which Miral blamed John Torres for all of her problems, for the fact that she was stuck on a human colony with a half-human daughter who resented being different and couldn't be bothered to learn about anything Klingon.

"Your daughter's father… Is he a good man?"

"My husband. Tom," Torres corrected automatically, blinking at the sudden change of topic. She twisted the thin gold band she wore on the ring finger of her left hand; she didn't usually wear her wedding band—anything on the hands was a bad idea in engineering, even at R&D—but attending a conference was hardly something that would put her fingers at risk. "He's a great man, although I do not know why," she said with a snort. "He is often irreverent, reckless, and immature. The things he finds interesting baffle me. But he is loyal and strong, and just as stubborn as I am. He makes me a better person, and he loves me. And I love him. Very much."

"Then you will be fine," Miral said. "He will keep you from making the mistakes I made with you."

"He's gone," Torres said. She watched her mother's eyes flash dangerously.

"You said he is loyal," she pointed out, "but it sounds like you married someone just like your father. Someone who does not have the constitution to live with someone with Klingon blood."

"He's dead," Torres said flatly. "I think even you could find that to be a reasonable excuse to not help raise our child." She watched the emotions play out on her mother's face. "He was a Starfleet pilot," she continued. "A couple of months ago, his ship disappeared in the Badlands. There's no sign of any survivors."

"Ships do not simply disappear," Miral said, unknowingly echoing her daughter's statement.

"This one seems to have," Torres said softly. "Starfleet is still looking, but nobody is optimistic. But whether he's dead or just…lost, I have to do this without him. And I'm not sure I know how."

Miral thought about that for a moment. "Do not be too stubborn. I know that will be hard for you." B'Elanna snorted, thinking of one of Alicia's lines about pots and kettles. Miral fixed her with a look that was similar enough to one she got growing up that she immediately shut up. "Let her be her own person, but make sure she knows where she comes from."

"That seems to be a difficult balance," Torres said, thinking of how spectacularly Miral failed at it.

"Indeed," Miral said dryly, probably thinking the same thing.

Torres finished her raktajino and rolled the empty cup along its rim. "I'd like you to meet her, when she comes," she said, her words coming out in a rush. "I want her to know you."

To her surprise, Miral looked away and seemed to be contemplating the wall for a long moment. "That will be difficult," she finally said. "I do not think the Khitomer Accords will last that long."

Torres snorted. "You've been saying that since I was five," she reminded her mother.

"But this time, it is true," Miral said. She looked around and leaned forward. Involuntarily, Torres did as well, leaning toward her mother. "There will be a war soon between the Empire and the Cardassians. The Federation will object and it will end our alliance. Travel between Earth and Qo'noS will be…difficult, if not impossible."

"You don't know—"

"I do know," Miral interrupted. "Do not ask me how. I will try to see you and the baby after she is born, but I cannot make any promises." She paused again. "Tell your colleagues to be careful while on Qo'noS. They—and you—should not wear uniforms outside of this conference. The feeling toward Federations is not favorable right now."

Torres snorted. "The Empire and the Federation… Two stubborn governments who don't know how to yield."

"It is symbolic, is it not?" Miral asked with a slightly sad smile. "Enough about politics. Tell me about your daughter. When is she anticipated to arrive?"

"I'm twenty-two weeks now," Torres said. "My doctor anticipates another ten weeks."

"The last few weeks are a difficult and trying time," Miral said. "At least, they were for me. You were very active in the womb and did not seem to sleep."

"Tom would say the same thing about me now," Torres said with a laugh. "I guess some things don't change."

Miral smiled as well. "Do you have a name for her yet?"

"I don't know if I'll decide for sure until she's born, but I'm leaning toward Isela." She glanced down at her mug. "She died last year."

Miral nodded slightly. "Your grandmother was a fine woman. It would honor her greatly to give your daughter her name."

"I got to know her again while I was at the Academy. She came to some of my track meets." She paused, thinking about the words her mother had just said to her and not sure how much detail Miral would want. "My father remarried," she said in a rush. "He has another daughter, Navi. She's eleven."

Miral nodded again. "I know," she said simply. "Isela told me." B'Elanna must have looked surprised, because Miral smiled slightly. "I told you, your grandmother was an honorable woman."

"That she was," Torres agreed. "I miss her."

Miral looked like she wanted to say more, but changed her mind. "The conference is four days," she said instead. "I would like to be able to spend more time with you while you are here."

Torres smiled. "I would like that, too."


	8. 2371

It took a few weeks, but Lt. B'Elanna Torres finally started to get used to the different operation tempo at R&D in San Francisco. Her job with the Theoretical Propulsion Group was just that: theoretical. They had big questions and big ideas, and nobody really expected answers. At R&D, they were responsible for answering all the questions that came in from the Fleet, from the mundane to the complicated. As the most junior engineer, both in rank and time with the group—as well as the one about to go on parental leave—Torres spent most of her time on questions on the simpler end of the spectrum. Most of the questions could be answered with a search of the published literature, and those that required an actual experiment could typically be set up and run within a day, despite being slowed down by the abnormally large belly she was carrying around.

Pregnant belly or not, she still worked long hours, probably too long, which earned her gentle scoldings from Alicia when she arrived at the Paris house in the evenings. She didn't know how to tell her mother-in-law that work was still the only thing to distract her from the fact that the rest of her life had gone to hell, or that being exhausted at the end of the day was the only way to fall asleep in the bed that had once been Tom's without thinking about what she was missing.

Two weeks away from the estimated due date Dr. Gault had given her, she was ready to get the whole pregnancy thing over with and get her body back, even though she didn't feel ready for parenthood. Or the four months away from work during parental leave.

Or completely coming to terms with the new reality she would find herself in: that of a single mother who had no idea what to do with an infant and missing a husband who had looked forward to figuring that out with her.

She was in the process of setting up an experiment in an effort to respond to a query about those damn gelpacks when her console beeped with an incoming message. "What now?" she muttered to herself as she pressed to confirm.

A message from Owen asking if she could come "home" early. She sighed as she glanced at the chronometer, seeing that it was already 1700; a quick glance around the room confirmed that most of her fellow engineers had already wrapped up their work for the day and gone home. She sighed again and typed out a quick reply, telling him that she was on her way.

The gelpacks would have to wait until tomorrow, which was just fine with her. She hated the damn things, hated that her first assignment at UP made her as much an expert in them as anyone else, and had no idea which biomedical engineer had convinced which admiral that they would be an improvement over traditional systems.

She entered the Paris house a few minutes later, the sarcastic quip she had ready for Owen dying on her lips when she saw who was sitting in the living room with her parents-in-law. "Hello," she said instead, mostly to get their attention, as engrossed as they were in their conversation, but also to express her confusion—and displeasure—at what she was seeing.

The tall Klingon man stood abruptly at the word. "B'Elanna, daughter of Miral," he said with a nod, which only made her narrow her eyes further. "I am QanaH, of the House of T'PaH." He waited for a beat for recognition to take place; when it didn't, he added, "I am your cousin."

"I remember you," she said, and she did, from her visit to Qo'noS when she was five. They were about the same age, but because Klingon children matured faster than humans, he had seemed much older. And had been entirely dismissive of his smaller cousin.

He gave a slight nod to the words. "I trained in engineering under Miral," he said. Torres snorted and rolled her eyes.

"Good for you," she said dryly. "If she was half as demanding of a professor as she was a mother, I'm sure it was a treat." In truth, it wasn't surprising that she and her mother weren't the only engineers of the family; the House of T'PaH was a small one, far from being one of the noble houses that sat on the High Council, but one that had historically produced scientists. Torres' grandfather had boasted that it was a member of their family who created the Klingons' first warp drive; she had no idea if it was true, but from she knew of the family, it was entirely conceivable.

"She was a demanding instructor, this is true," QanaH agreed with a nod. He hesitated after those words, just long to enough to make Torres narrow her eyes and cock her head, alarm bells beginning to ring through her brain.

Engineer or no, she had been on Earth or Mars for six years and Kessik IV for the seventeen before that, and no family member had ever visited her in either location. "What happened to my mother?" she asked coolly, willing him not to say the words, even though she knew that that was what he was there to do.

It had already been a terrible year. She didn't need anything to add to it.

"There was…an explosion, in her lab," QanaH finally said. "Miral and three assistants were killed."

She didn't feel the wave of disbelief that she had felt when Owen had brought those two admirals to Utopia Planitia, but nor did she feel any sort of physical reactions to the words at all. It was like she was numb to all of it. "What kind of explosion?" she asked, her voice even.

QanaH again hesitated before responding, "Trilithium."

"Trilithium?" she asked, now confused. "Klingon systems don't use…" Her voice trailed off, remembering reading the reports of the Romulan-sponsored civil war that had occurred on Qo'noS while she was still a cadet. "Romulan?"

"Romulan involvement is not suspected," QanaH said stiffly.

"They're the only ones who have trilithium weapons," she pointed out. "The only ones we know of, anyway."

"Early investigations reveal that the trilithium resulted from errors in dilithium processing," QanaH said, his voice just as stiff.

"That doesn't make any sense," Torres argued. "Why would my mother be involved in dilithium processing? She's not a chemical engineer. She does industrial engineering. There's no reason…" Her voice trailed off as she remembered an emphatic conversation over raktijino, her mother's words about a coming war with the Cardassians, and her eyes widened as she realized the implications.

Her mother had been working on a weapon.

"It's true, isn't it?" she asked softly. "There's going to be a war."

"B'Elanna?" Owen asked. She waved his words aside with a silent promise that she would explain everything, even as her eyes didn't leave her cousin.

"There is much involved that I am not privy to," he said, his words still just as stiff and stoic as they had been.

She opened her mouth to comment further, but instead of words, she found herself gasping for air at the abrupt searing pain in her abdomen.

"B'Elanna?" Owen asked, concerned. "Are you alright?"

"Doctor," she managed as she shook her head, still fighting the pain that was preventing her from even taking a full breath. She heard her father-in-law calmly calling for an emergency medical transport, the words barely registering in the back of her mind as she fought her fading vision. With one blink, the quiet of the Paris' living room was replaced with the bustle of the emergency department at Starfleet Medical.

Half an hour later, her pain and breathing were both under control and she was in a private room in the antenatal department. "You've got to stop scaring us like this," Dr. Gault said as he entered the room. She gave him a glare, but knew it wasn't her best effort. "Fortunately, everything looks good," he continued.

"How can everything look good?" she countered. "It felt like I was being stabbed in the gut!"

"I don't know what you've done to anger her this time, but I can pretty confidently say that she isn't going anywhere for at least a week," he said. "Klingon fetuses can kick pretty aggressively—"

"I've felt her kick," Torres interrupted. "That isn't what that was."

He shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you," he said. "You're not in labor, there's no placental separation, the baby looks happy and healthy. At this point in pregnancy, it's not unusual for the uterus to give some practice contractions—"

"Can I go home?" she interrupted. She didn't really care to listen to him hypothesize about what could have caused her pain.

"I'd like you to stay here overnight for observation," he said. "I've commed Dr. Bayrote—"

"I didn't imagine this!"

"I didn't say you did," he said mildly. "You're having a difficult pregnancy and are in a difficult social situation. Those are usually things that people discuss with their psychiatrists, and since I've known you long enough to guess that you haven't been in here to talk to him since the last time you were hospitalized, I thought you might be due." He shrugged again. "You can discuss replicator recipes with him, kick him out, or talk like rational adults. I don't care. Makes no difference to me." He waited for a response, which she didn't give, and moved for the door. "I'll be back to check on you in the morning. Let the nurses know if you need me before then. They'll let me know if you spontaneously go into labor, but like I said—she's staying put for a little longer."


	9. 2377

Stardate 54467.2  
2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager_  
Alpha Quadrant

 _*Admiral Paris to Lt. Paris.*_ Tom Paris heard the chirp of his communicator and scrambled to reach his uniform where it had been unceremoniously dropped.

"Paris here," he replied once he found it.

 _*We'll meet you in the mess hall in thirty minutes,*_ his father replied. _*I trust that's enough time to get ready.*_

"We'll be there," he replied. "Paris out." He closed the comm channel and turned back to his bed, where B'Elanna was rising and gathering her uniform pieces. "Was there a war?" he asked and he began dressing.

She nodded as she stepped into her pants. "About six months later," she said. "The whole thing was orchestrated by the Dominion—"

"I think I heard about them."

She looked taken aback for a minute, then chuckled. "You have a lot to catch up on," she said, amused. "That's another story entirely. I'll get to that eventually. But yes, there was a war between the Empire and the Cardassians. First the Klingons won, then the Cardassians joined the Dominion, then everyone went to war, and everything returned to the way it was before any of it started." She rolled her eyes. "Standard Klingon bluster. Fight a war, declare yourself a victor, nothing changes in the end."

He knew that tone in her voice, somehow both resigned and frustrated at once, the one she always got when she talked about anything Klingon. "I'm sorry about your mother," he finally said. She had mentioned in a letter over the datastream that her mother had died before Izzy was born, but didn't include specifics. "I'm glad you got to talk to her, at least."

She nodded dismissively, not quite meeting his eye, and he still knew that look, the one that said she couldn't quite process what she felt and didn't know how to talk about it. He knew that while he was just hearing this now, Miral had died a long time ago, and he wondered if he was dragging up things she would prefer not to think about. "It was…different," she finally said. "When you disappeared, it was like a piece of me disappeared with you. But when my mother died…" her voice trailed off again, processing what she was thinking. "She had been such a huge part of my life for so long," she said, her words now coming out in a rush. "For the first seventeen years of my life, she was always there, always…nagging me, and it drove me insane. It drove us apart. And even after I left, she was still there, inside my head, making me angry, making me second guess myself, making me second guess everything. Including you." She was looking at him fully now, and he pulled her into an embrace. He knew that, of course, one of their countless conversations about their parents and the difficulties living up to expectations they didn't want to meet. "But then you were gone, and I was pregnant with Izzy, and I understood, and I thought that maybe we could actually have a relationship. And then… And then she died. And it was just…over." She pulled away from him and resumed getting dressed. "I think about her sometimes," she said, her voice now even. "I wish she could have been there for Izzy. It would be nice to have her grandmother tell her about what it means to be Klingon. I certainly can't do it—I don't want her to pick up on the resentment. I want her to be proud of her heritage. Or at least accepting of it. I think things would have been different for me if I had been taught to appreciate the different sides of who I am, instead of growing up thinking that I wasn't enough of either for it to be worth it." There was a split second of vulnerability in her expression before she rolled her eyes. "She would have been really helpful when Izzy is being a brat, too," she said dryly.

"What?" he asked in mock disbelief as they stepped out of his quarters. "How can any child of ours be a brat?"

She chuckled, the heavy mood gone, or at least temporarily dismissed. "Oh, you're in for a treat with this parenting thing, let me tell you. Six going on sixteen. Or something."

The fact that his daughter was six years old and that he had missed her entire life was never far from his mind, and her words and the off-hand way she said them gave him another stab of guilt that he knew wasn't intentional.

They entered the dining hall and were immediately swamped by people congratulating Tom and thanking B'Elanna. He tried making introductions, but there were too many people and he could tell she was getting overwhelmed. Fortunately, she saw a familiar face in the crowd and brightened. "Joe!" she exclaimed.

"Hey, Torres," the chief engineer replied with a smile. "Welcome to _Voyager_. Well, welcome back."

"Looks a little different than the way I left it," she joked.

"Did you even see the mess hall?" Paris asked. "Or did you just replicate something at your workstation in engineering?"

"I can't believe you thought I ate lunch," she said to him, amused. "But I am looking forward to seeing what engineering looks like," she said to Lt. Carey. "What time do you need me tomorrow morning to help out?"

Carey chuckled. "I don't think I'm allowed to dictate the duty schedule of lieutenant commanders," he replied. "Whenever you want to come is fine."

"Careful," Paris warned. "She'll want to head right there after eating dinner and won't leave for the next twenty-four hours. It's best to give some sort of guidance."

"I think we still have a staff meeting at 0800 tomorrow," Carey replied. "If you want to come when we're done with that, that'll be fine by me."

"I'll see you in the morning."

Captain Janeway had arrived with Admiral Paris and Izzy and they grabbed a table. "Get a good tour of the ship?" Tom asked his father.

"It's quite impressive, considering it's gone almost seven years without a dry dock," he replied. "Apparently I taught my protégé how to run a ship."

"Sure, Dad," Tom replied, rolling his eyes. "It was all about you."

Owen chuckled. "Izzy has her own, personalized tour of the ship scheduled for tomorrow morning," he said, smiling down at his granddaughter.

"Oh?" Tom asked Izzy, who nodded.

"Did you know that Naomi Wildman is _Voyager's_ ambassador?" she asked him excitedly. "We met her when Captain Janeway was showing us around. I mean, I kinda already knew her, because we were pen pals over the datastream, but I actually met her today. She's only five, but she's taller than me. She's going to give me a tour of the ship tomorrow and then teach me how to play kadis-kot."

"Naomi is an excellent ambassador," Paris replied. "It'll be a great tour of the ship." Actually, it would probably involve going a lot of places he wasn't sure _any_ six-year-old should be going, much less one who wasn't born and raised on a space ship.

"She also told us what Mr. Neelix had prepared for dinner tonight," Owen continued, then frowned dubiously.

"You should replicate something," Paris was quick to say. "Let's just say Neelix's cooking is an acquired taste. And acquired out of necessity."

"Can I try it?" Izzy asked excitedly.

"You have an odd sense of adventure, kiddo," B'Elanna said. "But have at it if you want."

"Guess you didn't get your mother's pickiness when it comes to food," Tom joked.

"If you grew up on _gagh_ and blood pie, you'd be particular about what you ate, too," B'Elanna replied mildly. "And you're a fine one to talk. You'd eat pepperoni pizza every night of the week if you could get away with it."

"You do know that I'm going to be doing that for at least the next six months, right?" he joked back. Except he really wasn't sure he was joking. "Besides, I've had enough adventure to last me for a while. Culinary or otherwise."

"Please," B'Elanna scoffed. "We all know Parises don't turn their backs on adventure, this one included. Even Nicki had to get in on the action while you were gone."


	10. 2371

Stardate 48657  
2371  
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. B'Elanna Torres winced at the tightening on her abdomen, gritting her teeth as she concentrated on keeping her breathing even. "Three minutes," Lt. Sasha Vazquez said calmly from the other side of the console, her eyes still down on her work.

"What?" Torres asked.

"Your contractions," Vazquez replied, glancing across the console. "You haven't been doing a very good job hiding them all day. They're lasting about a minute, and are three minutes apart. I don't know what your doctor told you, but that was when my midwife said I needed to get into the hospital."

Torres honestly couldn't remember what Dr. Gault had said at her last appointment the week before, still upset at him about her hospitalization the week before that. "I'd like to finish setting up this simulation," she said instead. Vazquez snorted.

"And I'd like to not have to deliver a baby at my work station," she countered. "I shouldn't think I would have to make it an order to seek medical care while in labor, but I've given up trying to understand how we engineers rationalize things." She returned her attention to her console before looking up again. "Go, Torres."

Torres glanced at the simulation she was setting up and sighed, and then winced as another contraction hit. "Okay," she said a minute later. "I'm going."

"I'll tell Johansen," Vazquez said. "Good luck."

The rooms in the labor and delivery suite were large and provided an expanded view of the San Francisco skyline and the gardens behind Starfleet Medical. They were clearly built for the families of the women in labor, which just served as a reminder to Torres that her family was all dead or estranged.

Her family may have been, but Tom's wasn't.

She opened a comm link. _*Denver Pediatrics, this is Dr. Sanders' office,*_ a pleasant receptionist answered.

"Is Dr. Sanders available?" Torres asked.

_*She's with a patient. Would you like me to take a message?*_

"Can you ask her to call B'Elanna? Use this frequency."

_*Yes, ma'am. Thank you.*_

She closed the link just as the door slide open to reveal Dr. Gault. "No false alarm this time," he said as a greeting. "Klingon labor has been known to last several days—" she shot him a glare, which he missed, "but based on how long you waited to come in and how you're progressing, I'd say about eight hours. However, I know how unpredictable you like being."

"I'm really not in the mood for your jokes today, Doctor," she snapped.

"I seem to get that a lot in these labor suites," he observed. She rolled her eyes, then winced as she was hit by another contraction.

"Another eight hours of this?" she asked.

"This is nothing compared to what you have coming up," he replied. She glared at him. "I'm going to check up on you periodically as we get closer to delivery time, but I'll do most of my monitoring from my office. Do you need anything?"

"Just for this kid to come out," she replied.

"Soon enough, B'Elanna." He gave her a slight smile before exiting the room.

A few minutes later, her PADD chirped with an incoming transmission. _*Go time?*_ Dr. Nichole Sanders asked as a greeting. Torres couldn't help but smile at her sister-in-law's blunt way of getting down to business, before she groaned from the force of another contraction.

"You can say that," she said when she recovered. "Dr. Gault said eight hours."

 _*Well, he is the expert,*_ Nicki said. _*I have patients scheduled for the next three hours, and then I can beam over. Does that work for you?*_

"I'll be here," Torres replied.

_*What I meant was, are you okay alone until then?*_

Torres knew what she was asking: was there anyone else she could comm to keep her company? Her half-sister Navi was probably too young to be hanging out in a labor and delivery suite—and was in school—which left other members of the Paris family. For as well as she enjoyed spirited scientific discussions with her father-in-law, this was neither the time nor the place, and she was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to stand the emotional roller coaster Alicia would be going through. "I'm sure I'll manage," she said instead.

 _*Okay,*_ Nicki said cheerfully. _*I'll see you in three hours. Let me know if anything significant changes before then. Maybe you should focus on the romance novels instead of the engine schematics.*_ She gave a wink and a grin and signed off before Torres could reply to that.

The hours went by quickly, the combination of the pain medications and the Klingon romance novels—Torres abandoned any thought of doing work when she opened up her latest experiment and couldn't make heads or tails of it through the pain of the contractions and the pain medications—and the next thing she knew, Nicki was in the room, her usual professional clothing and long medical coat replaced by medical scrubs, her long blond hair in a ponytail and her usual smile on her face. "What? No baby yet?" she joked as she entered the room.

"You're as good at measuring time as your brother," Torres replied. She winced with another contraction.

"Not too much longer now," Nicki said, her eyes on the contraction monitor above Torres' head. "Contractions are pretty strong. How're the pain meds?"

"Doing their job, I guess," Torres replied. Nicki looked back down at her and gave an apologetic smile.

"Sorry. I'll try to get out of doctor mode," she said. She gave an encouraging smile. "I've been at hundreds of births, including those of the three bratty children who currently live in my house. You're doing great. Of course, I'm usually the one standing over there," she said, gesturing toward the doctor in the back of the room, checking the pediatric equipment. "How's it going, Solaris?"

"Everything looks good from here, Nicki." The pediatric hybridologist said with a grin. "How's Denver?"

"As beautiful as always," Sanders replied. At Torres' questioning look, she explained, "We went to med school together."

"How does someone get from Johns Hopkins to being a Starfleet doctor?" Torres asked, now even more confused.

"I've always wanted to go Starfleet," Solaris—Torres had no idea if that was a first name, last name, or nickname—replied. "I graduated from the Academy and everything. Starfleet Medical Academy can't train all the physicians they need for the fleet. About half come from civilian medical schools. It keeps a constant infusion of new techniques and methods, instead of everyone training under the same people, who all trained under the same people, for as long as Starfleet has had a medical school. Plus it meant I got a four-year break from wearing uniforms." He smiled at his own joke. "Starfleet has some of the best medical training programs, so some people join just for the training. There aren't many options for training in hybridology out of Starfleet. And hybridology is really cool." He sounded genuinely enthusiastic about his career field, so much so that Torres would have laughed at the eagerness in his voice if it weren't for the fact that she was suffering through another contraction.

Much like she had done when Torres was hospitalized after _Voyager_ disappeared, Nicki distracted her with funny stories from her work and her kids, throwing in a couple about the way she and Sydney, Tom's oldest sister, had tormented him when he was little.

Not even the funniest stories could distract Torres from the fact that the contractions were getting more forceful, the pain intensifying to the point where it seemed the medications weren't even touching it, and then Dr. Gault reappeared in the room. "Next contraction, go ahead and push," he instructed. "Just a few more minutes now."

Nicki took her hand, which Torres shook off. "I will break your fingers," she said, hoping the words came out as a statement of fact and not the threat they sounded like after she spoke them. Fortunately, Nicki took it well, using her hand to push back a lock of Torres hair that had fallen out of her bun.

"You're almost done," she said encouragingly. "And then the hard part begins: putting up with Tom's kid for the next eighteen years."

Despite herself, Torres wheezed a chuckle at her sister-in-law's words, and just as Dr. Gault had claimed, a few minutes later it was over. "It's a girl," he said matter-of-factly as he placed the baby on her chest and glanced up at the chronometer. "Time of birth, Stardate 48657.66. For the sake of whatever baby book you're planning on making, it's July 1, 2371, at 2147." He looked at Torres and did something uncharacteristic: he smiled at her. "Congratulations, B'Elanna. You did it."

She did it. She had defied her angry words to her mother that she would never have kids in order to spare them the pains she had grown up with; she had defied the genetic incompatibilities that made hybrid pregnancies difficult; she had defied the Klingon physiology that didn't want her to be pregnant without her mate present.

She had become a mother. She had a daughter.

Solaris and Nicki were both grinning as he checked over the bundle of baby. "We're going to keep an eye on everything for a while, but she's very healthy," Solaris said. "And very beautiful. Congratulations, mom. Does she have a name?"

"Isela," Torres managed, her eyes fixed on the blue eyes of the brand new baby in her arms. Her fingers gently traced the ridges on her forehead, still so soft and faint. She had despised her own ridges for most of her life, but now, seeing them on her daughter, couldn't imagine anything more perfect. "Isela Miral Paris."

"Hi, Izzy," Nicki cooed, ever the pediatrician and fascinated with the new baby.

"Izzy?" Torres asked, looking over at Nicki, who just nodded.

"Isela's such a big name for such a tiny baby," she said. "She needs to grow into it." Torres snorted at the explanation. "She is beautiful," she said. "She has Tom's eyes."

"I thought all babies have blue eyes?"

"A lot do," Nicki said with a nod. "But even if hers darken, those are still Tom's eyes. I remember when he was a baby." B'Elanna was surprised to hear the thickness in Nicki's voice. "He would have loved her so much."

Torres had to swallow the sudden thickness in her own throat. "He already did," she said softly. She kissed Isela softly on the forehead. "Your dad loved you so much," she said softly.

Nicki wiped away a tear quickly and managed a chuckle. "This is a happy occasion," she declared. "Crying is not allowed." She gave her eyes another wipe before she managed a smile. "Enough of that. Before you comm Mom and Dad and give them the news, I have something to tell you."

"Oh, Kahless, you're not pregnant, are you?"

"No," Nicki said with a laugh. "I always get baby fever around fresh kids and now I really want another one, but no. I'm joining Starfleet. In about a week."

She didn't know if it was the unexpected words or the pain meds or the just the general rush of emotions and hormones at the moment, but something made B'Elanna laugh. "You?" she asked, incredulous. "You hate Starfleet!"

"I don't hate it, I just... Okay, yes, I've never had the best relationship with anything Starfleet," she said with a laugh of her own. "But with Izzy on the way, I did some research and I got really interested in hybrid pediatrics, and you heard Solaris—there just aren't any good hybridology programs outside of Starfleet. I have a couple of weeks of direct commission officer training—mostly how to put on a uniform and recognizing ranks, as if being born a Paris didn't leave that permanently embedded in my neural networks—followed by a one-year training program and three years of obligation. I figure getting the best hybridology training in the quadrant is worth four years of saying sir and wearing a uniform. Besides, I already know all the protocols, and I look good in blue."

Torres could only shake her head in wonder. "I really wish Tom could see this," she said with a laugh.

"I know, right?" Nicki said with a laugh of her own.

"What did Owen say?"

Nicki pinked slightly. "I haven't told him yet," she admitted. "I don't want to have to listen to him saying that he told me so!"

Torres could only laugh and shake her head. "Oh, Nicki," was all she could manage, not even having the energy to point out that showing up at her parents' house in a uniform would probably be a dead giveaway. "Thank you," she said a minute later, once her laughter was under control. "Thank you for being here for us."

Nicki gave her a long hug and kissed the top of her head. "That's what sisters are for."


	11. 2371

Between the doctors, medical students, nurses, medical crewmen, and no small amount of Paris family, there had been a constant stream of people in and out of Lt. B'Elanna Torres' room since she had arrived at Starfleet Medical, and the whole experience of putting up with them and their constant examinations was more exhausting than labor and delivery and nursing a newborn who always seemed to be hungry. _Probably the redundant digestive system_ , Dr. Yagasaki had reasoned when he examined Isela, seeming unfazed when she pointed out that she had two stomachs and didn't need to eat every hour and a half around the clock.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if Isela had shown any interest in sleeping, but in the three days since her birth, Torres would be willing to swear that her new daughter had slept maybe a total of half an hour. It was an exaggeration, but not too much of one, as they learned when Dr. Zalun put a sleep monitor on her in response to Nicki's concern about the lack of sleep. He was still collecting and analyzing the data, but so far was unconcerned, even going so far as reminding her that she functioned on very little sleep as well.

Her response probably changed his mind about how well she was functioning on very little sleep.

Torres glanced up as Nicki emerged from the room's sonic shower looking barely better rested than Torres herself. "Don't you have a job you need to be doing?" she asked, knowing she was being short with her sister-in-law but not really caring.

"I took off," Nicki said lightly, not bothered by B'Elanna's tone. Torres rolled her eyes.

"You Parises have strange views of work schedules and duty requirements," she said, remembering how much time Tom had taken off while she was in a coma her second classman year.

"I wouldn't recommend making that observation around Dad," Nicki said dryly. "Besides, not really. I'm going through a drastic career change, remember? I haven't taken any vacation time all year so I could save it up for the end, and I set up the transition to close out and transfer my patients before Izzy was born in case you needed help before I head off to demonstrate that I do, indeed, know how to survive in the Starfleet system." Torres blinked, realizing after the fact how much sense that made and how much time with her own family Nicki must have sacrificed to be there for her. "And I think before Tom took that time off to be with you in the hospital, he hadn't taken a single day off work. He probably had more than enough leave stored up."

Torres' eyes widened at the realization that Nicki must have been right, because Tom did have a tendency to store up leave days in order to take off longer chunks of time, whereas many of his coworkers—and hers, when she was stationed on Mars—would spread theirs out and take a Friday or a Monday off as often as they could for the quick trips back to Earth.

She just never realized that that was what he was doing, because she was too engrossed in her work to notice that they weren't taking time off. The thought gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomachs, that she could have had more time to spend with her husband, but was too busy with her warp engines to take it.

She hadn't realized how little time they would have to just spend together.

"Mom's going to be here in about an hour, and Dad said he's coming after his last meeting today," Nicki said lightly, the exchange about work and leave already behind her. "I think Ainsley said she's going to come by after school again, even though I told her that any missed homework assignments would not be tolerated. Christopher also expressed interest in coming, so I apologize in advance for that if it happens. The _Pathrind_ will be here tomorrow, so this is the last day you have free of Syd and the Wylands."

"I didn't know they were coming in," Torres commented.

"They're not, really," Nicki said, almost apologetically. "The _Pathrind_ will actually be at Mars Station for a quick stopover and personnel change. Syd and Jens and the kids are taking the commuter shuttle in and then are going to meet up with the ship somewhere in a week," she explained. She rolled her eyes. "They've only been off parental leave for a few weeks, and now they're taking a week off. Why they decided to take their parental leave on the ship instead of back here, I have no idea, but I've long given up trying to figure out why Syd does what Syd does."

"How is baby Alex?"

Nicki shrugged and waved dismissively. "I'm assuming fine, because Syd doesn't talk to me about such things. She's so competitive that she's worried someone else's babies might be meeting developmental milestones before hers, so she just doesn't talk about it."

Not for the first time, Torres found it hard to believe how three kids with the same genetic material and raised in the same house could be so different, which brought a now-familiar pang of sadness that Isela wouldn't have any opportunities for the sibling rivalries that Sydney, Nicki, and Tom had, no opportunities for wondering how someone who looked so similar could act so different.

About an hour later, Alicia appeared, followed closely by Ainsley, sans Christopher, explaining that her seven-year-old brother had changed his mind at the last minute and just walked home from school. "Can I hold Izzy?" Ainsley asked eagerly almost as soon as she entered the room.

"For someone who couldn't be bothered with her own brothers, you do sure like holding your cousin," Nicki teased her daughter.

"Maybe your parents will have another baby, and you'll get to do as much holding and baby-sitting as you want," Alicia teased. A look of horror crossed Ainsley's face.

"No!" she said emphatically. "No more!"

"Wow," Nicki said, her eyebrows raised. "That was certainly…forceful."

"What if it's another boy?" Ainsley asked. "I already have two brothers. I don't want to risk having a third."

"Unfortunately for you, kiddo, you don't really have a say in the matter," Nicki replied. "That's between me and your dad. The only uterus you have control over is your own, and it's going to remain empty for another fifteen or so years."

"Fifteen?" Ainsley asked. "I'll be twenty-six."

"You're right," Nicki said. "Maybe twenty years would be better. Twenty-six is too young."

Ainsley rolled her eyes. "You were twenty-two when I was born."

"And that was too young. We should have just waited and started with Christopher. When I was twenty-five."

"B'Elanna's twenty-three," Ainsley continued. Nikki threw up her hands in defeat.

"It's your life, do whatever you want with it," she said with a sigh. She turned to her sister-in-law. "This is what you have to look forward to," she said.

"Whatever," Ainsley said dismissively, her attention already back on the baby. "Your life would be boring without me."

"The funny part of this entire exchange, Ainsley, is that I'm pretty sure I had the exact same one with your mother when she was about your age," Alicia said with a smile.

"I think I told you I wasn't going to have kids," Nicki replied. "That certainly worked out well for me."

"I told my mother the same thing," B'Elanna admitted.

"So does that mean if I say I want kids, that I won't have any?" Ainsley asked with a frown, looking up again. "I'm still trying to figure out what direction I want my life to go."

"You're eleven," Nicki pointed out. "You have plenty of time to figure that out."

"Life is short," Ainsley replied. "Tom was 26 when he died."

It was like time stopped for a second before B'Elanna was able to take a breath again. It had been months, but hearing the words, and so bluntly from her niece, was like a punch to the gut, and she could tell Nicki and Alicia had the same reaction. "Ainsley—," Nicki finally said, her voice little more than a whisper.

"What?" Ainsley asked. "Are you going to say that he had a dangerous job?"

"Well—"

"And now you're joining Starfleet, too," Ainsley continued, her voice now harsh. "Because it's not enough that Izzy has to grow up without her dad, but now you have to go risk your life, too?"

"Ainsley," Alicia said gently. "Your mom's a doctor. Tom was a pilot—"

"And his _whole ship_ disappeared," Ainsley interrupted heatedly. "Everyone on the ship. Not just the pilot. Including _the doctors._ And now Mom's going to be joining Starfleet—"

"I'm going to be a hybrid pediatrician," Nicki said. "There aren't a lot of kids on most ships. I'm pretty sure I'm going to spending my time here at Starfleet Medical."

"You don't know that," Ainsley shot back. "Sure, you're going to be here at the start, but maybe they'll want you on a ship, and—"

"Tom loved flying," B'Elanna finally said, and finally, the others stopped talking. "Gods, he loved flying. Even after all his years of doing it, it was still his favorite thing. The more complicated the flying, the happier he was. If he had known that _Voyager_ was going to disappear, there's no way he would have gone on that mission—Kahless, there's no way Starfleet would have had the mission go forward if they had known—but he was so excited to go. Everyone knows that Starfleet ships can't keep up with the Maquis in the Badlands, but with _Voyager_ , and with Tom at the helm, he was ready to prove them wrong." She took a deep breath. "I know he would do _anything_ to be here; _I_ would do anything to have him here, but since that can't happen… He was doing what he loved. I love my job. Your mom loves her job. Sydney, well, I don't know if Syd really has feelings, but I'm sure she loves her job, too. Certainly, nobody loves his job more than your grandfather. Life is short, Ainsley. It's too short for you to be worried about your mom or anyone else. And it's too short for you not to do whatever makes you happy."


	12. 2371

Parental leave was nice.

For about six weeks.

Izzy—Isela; B'Elanna was upset with herself that even she was starting to think of her daughter by the nickname Nicki had given her—continued to eat too often and not sleep often enough, but other than that, was a fairly easy baby, and they were quickly able to get into a routine, proving that while she may be a Paris, she was still the daughter of an engineer. They ate, they went for walks around the neighborhood, they went to a lot of doctor's appointments at Starfleet Medical, they ate some more, B'Elanna tried to sleep and Izzy didn't know yet that she was supposed to try, and over and over again. They were still living with the Parises, and Alicia was more than happy to dote on her youngest grandchild, which went a long way in making up for not having a second parent involved.

B'Elanna loved her daughter, even when she was eating too often and not sleeping often enough. She loved everything about her, especially as she was beginning to develop a personality and trying out different facial expressions and different sounds, but she would have given anything to have a complicated engineering problem to work through. Or even a basic mechanical repair.

Maybe she could take Alicia's replicator apart and back together. She had gotten much better at replicators since the first time she tried that as a kid.

She remembered Tom teasing her about building a warp core from scratch during a weekend in Greece. The memory made her smile, then roll her eyes.

How someone so different could have known her so well was beyond her understanding.

Nicki had graduated from her Medical Officers' Basic Course right in the middle of her class; she could have easily been the honor graduate, with how much she had had Starfleet drilled into her growing up, but right in the middle of the class was exactly where she had wanted to be. She was immediately made a senior lieutenant with a guaranteed promotion to lieutenant commander in a year when she finished her hybridology training, which amused B'Elanna and annoyed Sydney so much that they were all treated to a long monologue at dinner after Nicki's graduation about how ridiculous it was the way Starfleet treated physicians and how they shouldn't be treated differently than any other officer.

Nicki had mildly responded that if Sydney didn't like how the promotions worked, she could just go to medical school and complete a residency and fellowship and also get such preferential treatment. Sydney had rolled her eyes, but at least she had shut up.

B'Elanna didn't dislike her oldest sister-in-law; she would just rather deal with any other member of the Paris family.

The diversion for Nicki's graduation and celebratory dinner was the first break in the routine of being a new parent, and it made B'Elanna crave more. It made her crave going anywhere that wasn't Starfleet Medical or the Paris' neighborhood.

She knew it was dangerous, but she found herself imagining what parental leave would have been like with Tom. Even if her pregnancy had progressed without any problems, Dr. Gault would have insisted that she deliver at Starfleet Medical. He would have also insisted she travel to Earth at least a week before she delivered; Tom would have started his parental leave to go with her. They probably would have still stayed with the Parises after leaving the hospital, because Alicia would still want to help with everything and there would be no way either of them would turn down free assistance.

That would be the first four weeks. They would start with short trips away, always within easy transport distance of Starfleet Medical, because Tom would be nervous about something happening. A few hours in New York or Washington, DC, maybe, and then they would start overnight trips. Hawaii. Florida. Cancun. Places with beaches, because B'Elanna liked beaches.

By the end of the second month, they'd be spending most of their time away. Probably a few weeks in France. Maybe Tom's uncle's place on Lake Como, or his cousin's place in Australia, or both. Izzy wouldn't understand the significance of any place they take her, but that would be okay. Her father would love pretending that he was showing her Earth, her parents would be relaxed, they would love her very much, and that was all she needed.

They'd move back to their apartment on Mars Station for the last month of parental leave, moving Izzy into the nursery that Tom would have painstakingly furnished and decorated. There would undoubtedly be a mobile of starships over her crib, and probably something Klingon that Tom would insist on and B'Elanna would raise her arms in defeat and let him display.

She opened her eyes, and the disappointment she felt at remembering that that was just a fantasy brought a fresh wave of pain. She had been doing that too much lately, doing things that she knew would hurt her, to remind her that she still felt. Not physical pain; Izzy already only had one parent, she couldn't do anything to risk reducing that number to zero. Besides, there was nothing she could do in her post-partum state to bring her physical pain. She longed to _run_ , to run until her quads cried for relief, until her lungs burned, until her heart wanted to burst out of her chest. She wanted to sprint, to throw herself over the vault and fly down until she smacked down on the mats. Hard.

But even that pain didn't hurt this way.

She had an appointment at Starfleet Medical that day—no, it was Isela who had an appointment. With who? She had met with Dr. Zalun about the not sleeping thing the week before, so it probably wasn't him.

Dr. Yagasaki. The gastroenterologist. Something about monitoring the way Izzy's—Isela's—redundant stomach was developing.

If there were problems with it, it wasn't affecting her eating. She was still demanding to be fed more than every other hour. And it was exhausting.

She packed what she would need for the few hours away before securing Isela in her carrier, feeling the now-familiar weight and warmth of her infant against her chest. "Isela has an appointment at Starfleet Medical," she told Alicia as she headed for the door. "I'll probably get lunch with Nicki after."

"Do you need any help?" Alicia asked, already halfway out of her chair.

"No," B'Elanna snapped, then added, "but thank you."

The appointment didn't take long; Dr. Yagasaki did some scans, then said in that way that all doctors did that they were going to continue to monitor. She asked when Isela would start to cut back on how often she needed to eat, and he gave the incredibly scientific answer of "seeing how she does."

B'Elanna was beginning to doubt Nicki's claims of how much science went into hybrid medicine.

She commed said sister-in-law when she was done with the appointment, and Nicki said she could meet her in about an hour for lunch. It was a nice day outside in one of the few months of the year that San Francisco had nice days, and B'Elanna elected to spend the hour walking around in the gardens around Starfleet Medical.

She looked down at her daughter as she entered the garden. Isela was, of course, awake, but calm as she appeared to study her surroundings. At her last general pediatrician's visit—the week before; they were spending far too much time at Starfleet Medical—Solaris—who B'Elanna now knew was actually Dr. Jaxon—had said that human babies at six weeks couldn't see much past a meter in front of them, but with her Klingon genes, it looked like Isela could see almost as well as an adult. And then launched into a long description about how infancy was the most vulnerable time of life and Klingons had apparently evolved to get through it as quickly as possible, which was also why she was growing so much and possibly why she was eating so much, and B'Elanna had known it was easier to let him talk than interrupt him.

Besides, it wasn't like she had had anywhere else to go.

"Do you see the flowers?" B'Elanna asked her daughter as they walked, feeling silly as she did so. "There are a lot of colors today. Usually all you can see around San Francisco is gray." Cold and gray. Kahless, why did she live there? Maybe when she finally moved out of the Parises' house, she'd move somewhere warm. The elder Isela used to live outside Phoenix, Arizona, and B'Elanna remembered enjoying the searing heat when she would visit. That might be warm enough.

They continued to walk through the gardens, with B'Elanna pointing out the various flowers and trees and ponds and fish to an infant who appeared that she couldn't care less, and honestly, B'Elanna sympathized with that. She was about to take a seat and pull out a PADD and do some reading, but the sudden sound of her voice caused her to turn quickly enough to earn a noise of surprise from Isela. "Navi," B'Elanna said in surprise as her half-sister approached. She nodded briefly to Commander Tulon, following her daughter from a distance.

"Broke my arm rock-climbing," Navi said, answering the unasked question of what she was doing there in the middle of a school day and holding up an obviously mended arm. "Hi, Izzy," she cooed at the infant, getting a giggle in return.

"I didn't know you were into climbing," B'Elanna replied. "Tom and I used to go climbing on Mars." There was actually a period of a couple of months that they went out almost every night after work for at least a short climb and spent the weekends climbing and camping, and then like all of Tom's hobbies, his interest waned and more and more time stretched between their climbs. "I think I have his climbing programs somewhere. We should hit the holodeck sometime. And you can't break any bones with the safeties on."

"Navi seems to be in a 'what's the point in doing it if it's not dangerous?' phase," Commander Tulon commented dryly. "Navi, we need to get you back to school. Go on to the transport station. I need to talk to B'Elanna for a minute."

Navi rolled her eyes in that way that twelve-year-olds did before she bid B'Elanna and Izzy good-bye and bounded off to the transport station, and B'Elanna's defenses automatically went up. She didn't know if it was something in the psychologist's expression or just that she was a psychologist, but she knew what was coming.

"How are you, B'Elanna?" Commander Tulon asked gently.

"I'm fine," Torres remarked crisply, and it wouldn't have taken a telepath to know that she was lying.

"B'Elanna," the psychologist continued, her voice still gentle. "I'm concerned about you—"

"Why?" Torres snapped in interruption. "You're not my commanding officer. You're not my therapist. You're not my mother. You're not even my step-mother. You're just married a man who, much to his own regret, happens to be my father."


	13. 2371

Still seething from her encounter with Commander T'Pana Tulon, Lt. B'Elanna Torres cancelled on lunch with Nicki and went straight back to the Paris house.

Where she got her second unpleasant surprise of the day.

Seated across from Owen Paris in the living room was John Torres.

" _What_ is he doing here?" she demanded of her father-in-law.

"I invited him," Owen replied mildly.

" _Why_?" she asked emphatically.

"He has a right to know his granddaughter."

"A right?" B'Elanna repeated. "A _right_?" She was so angry at the words that it took a minute to get her thoughts straight, and when her words finally came, they came loud and fast and barely in the right order. "You give up your _right_ to see any grandchildren when you _leave your child_. _He has no rights here_." She finally turned to face her father. "Maybe someday Navi will have kids. I'm sure she'll let you spend time with them."

She turned to leave the house. "B'Elanna," Owen said, forcefully enough to make her stop walking. "It's time for this to stop."

"That is not your decision," she snapped angrily as she twirled to face him. "You do not have a say in my life, or my daughter's life. We are not things for you to play with or order around. It didn't work with your children, and you better be damned sure it won't work with me." She barely paused to take a breath before she continued. "Tom hated when you did that. In case you didn't know. Thank you, Owen, for helping me finally realize why he spent so much time angry with you. I understand him a little bit better now."

And with that, she turned and left the Paris house. She stood outside for a long minute, wanting to scream but not wanting to disturb the infant still strapped to her chest. She glanced down at Isela to see large eyes watching her in return. Her daughter looked uncertain, but strangely enough, not terribly upset. Satisfied, she strode resolutely away from the house.

All of her things, and Isela's things, were in Tom's old bedroom, but they were just things. Nothing that couldn't be replicated. Nothing that couldn't be walked away from.

She made her way to the nearest transport station. "Where to, ma'am?" the civilian transporter tech asked.

"Hawaii," she replied after only a few seconds of hesitation. "The Big Island."

Almost the next thing she knew, she was sitting on the balcony of the hotel room, looking out over the water and enjoying the heat and humidity of the tropical island, when, right on schedule, Isela began fussing. "Don't worry, I'm still here," B'Elanna said to the small baby. "I'm not going anywhere, Isela. We've got to stick together. We're the only family we've got."

* * *

B'Elanna had an appointment with Dr. Gault—or was it Dr. Hrom, or maybe both?—about a week after she angrily stormed out of the Paris house. She hadn't been in contact with anyone since that day, but didn't fool herself into believing that everyone she or Tom was related to hadn't heard about the events in great detail, which was why she did something she usually didn't do when Nicki commed her asking if she wanted to do lunch after her appointment—she hesitated.

Ultimately, she decided it wouldn't hurt, and composed a brief reply saying that she'd meet her in Starfleet Medical's mess hall.

The appointment was with Dr. Hrom, who hmmed and hawed while studying her hormone levels, asked how she was feeling, made a decision to lower the pheromone treatment and follow up in two weeks to see how it goes, again stated his desire to have her tapered off by the time Isela was done nursing, and wished her a good day.

Nicki was already seated when B'Elanna entered the mess hall, and even after all those weeks, it still took B'Elanna a beat to recognize the woman in the teal uniform as her sister-in-law. "I heard about what happened," the pediatrician said as B'Elanna sat down, getting right down to business, as usual. "Not that it fixes anything, but Mom is furious with Dad. She usually looks the other way when it comes to Dad's edicts about our lives, but even she knows he crossed the line this time."

"I really don't want to talk about it, Nicki," B'Elanna said forcefully.

Nicki studied her for a second before shrugging dismissively. "Okay," she said. "How's Hawaii?"

They talked about meaningless things, like the differences in weather between Hawaii and Colorado, and then B'Elanna saw her sister-in-law stiffen. Even before she turned in her chair to see what had gotten Nicki's attention, she knew what—or rather, who—would be there.

Seeing Admiral Owen Paris approach their table, she spun quickly back to Nicki. "Did you do this?" she demanded. "Trick me into talking to him?"

"No!" Nicki exclaimed. "Why would you—"

"Because that's what you did to Tom!"

Nicki opened her mouth to respond, then closed it, then opened it again. "I did," she finally admitted. "But that was different," she added quickly. "That was… That was Tom and Dad stuff. This isn't. I get that. He had _no right_ to meddle with things in your family, and on behalf of someone who was raised in that household, I wish I could apologize for that."

B'Elanna had no time to respond to that before Owen was at their table, and she didn't even give him a chance to open his mouth before she was on her feet and making moves to leave. "B'Elanna, please," and there was something in his voice that made her stop.

She turned to face him and blinked in surprise. He looked like he hadn't slept in the week since she had left the house in a fury, his eyes red and puffy, his skin almost sallow. He didn't even look like that when _Voyager_ had disappeared. "I'm sorry," he said simply, his eyes on her before moving over to his daughter. "To both of you," he amended, before turning back to B'Elanna. "I've had no right to try to make decisions for anyone else in my family, and looking back on it…" His voice got thicker as it trailed off, and B'Elanna was surprised to see tears in his eyes. "You aren't extensions of me. None of you are, and I don't know why it took me so long to see that." He swallowed, then continued. "I never thought I would have so little time with my son, and to have wasted so much of it with him mad at me because I couldn't let him be his own person… I'll never get that time back. I don't want to lose any more time with anyone else. I'm always here to help you, any of you, but I'm done giving unsolicited advice. And I'm sorry I didn't realize how harmful it was sooner."

* * *

Lt. B'Elanna Torres stared at herself in the mirror critically. If she didn't have the proof in the form of the very loud three-and-a-half month old, she might have been able to convince herself that the whole pregnancy and childbirth had just been a strange dream for how quickly her figure returned to close to its previous form. Dr. Hrom had muttered something about hormones, Solaris Jaxon had excitedly launched into a long hypothesis about Klingon post-partum metabolisms and returning to fighting shape to protect their infants, and Dr. Gault had dryly commented that if he could bottle it, he could make his patients very happy, because it was about at the three month mark that most of his patients started complaining about how much they wanted their old bodies back.

But beyond being annoyed with so many people talking about her and dissecting her down to her hormones and genetics, B'Elanna couldn't bring herself to care. Much like she had told Dr. Yamisuko at her first prenatal visit, she didn't skip meals because of any desire to keep her weight down; she hadn't cared about her weight then, and didn't care about it now. She had the strength and endurance to do what she needed to do—which at the moment was caring for an infant without sleeping—and that's all she cared about.

For another two weeks; after that point, she'd need the strength and endurance to care for an infant without sleeping, and work full shifts at Starfleet Engineering.

She finally turned away from her reflection and got dressed, pulling on a sundress, practically her parental leave uniform after she moved to Hawaii. She dressed warmer if she was going to San Francisco, but where she was headed that day, the dress would be fine.

She had forgiven Owen. She had forgiven her mother. Most of her had forgiven Tom for going on that damn mission and dying. It was time to see if she could forgive her father.

"C'mon, Izzy," she said as she picked up the infant and strapped her into the carrier. The move to Hawaii was nice overall—they now had a great apartment and the weather was warm and perfect—but she did miss having the built-in help that came from living with her in-laws.

She had forgiven Owen, but not even that was enough to make her want to move back to San Francisco.

The transport from Hawaii to Ixtapa, Mexico was as brief as always, and then she was there. In front of his house. It hadn't taken much to get into the surveillance systems to know that he was currently alone inside that house. All she had to do was walk up to the door and press on the announcer chime.

And yet, her feet might as well have been rooted to the ground, for as unwilling as they were to move.

And then she took a deep breath, and moved.

The door opened about two seconds after she pressed on the announcer, and there he was. John Torres. Her father. Now standing closer to her than he had since she was five. "B'Elanna," he said in surprise. She didn't know what to call him, so she just nodded. "Please, come in. Can I get you anything?"

"No. Thank you." She followed him into the house, looking around at the warm, tasteful decorations, and awkwardly sat where indicated.

That awkwardness stretched on for several long minutes before John cleared his throat. Not waiting for him to ask her why she was there, she beat him to it, her words coming out in a rush. "I went to Qo'noS to find my mother, a few months before she died," she said. "And I figured if I could forgive her for how she raised me, that maybe someday I could forgive you for not raising me." She finally looked over at him, fully looked at him, to see a pained expression on his face. "But I need to know why."

And he told her everything, as painful as it was for him to say it and her to hear it, everything about the quick marriage, how they thought bringing a child into it would save them, how it obviously didn't, how weak he had been and how easily Miral had convinced him that he shouldn't have any contact with his daughter, how much he doted on Navi as if that could make up for the fact that he couldn't see his first daughter.

When he was done talking, B'Elanna stood up without saying anything and headed for the door. She exited the house, but didn't go far, taking a seat on the stairs leading up to the front door, where she sat, looking at her daughter, for what could have been minutes or hours.

"Lieutenant?" She looked up to see the uniform-clad figure of Commander Tulon several meters away.

"Commander," she replied. She swallowed, then said, "I need help."

The psychologist gave a short nod, her expression resolute. "Let me go inside and tell John where I am. We'll comm Dr. Bayrote on the way."


	14. 2377

Stardate 54468.5  
2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager_  
Alpha Quadrant

"Turns out, hybrids are predisposed to mood disorders," B'Elanna said with a wry smile as she crossed the room to recycle her empty mug. "There's the whole social isolation and not fitting in, but really, it's biology. Neurotransmitters and receptors are on different genes, and sometimes we get neurotransmitters and receptors that don't fit each other. I get depressed, which sometimes makes me lash out in inappropriate anger." She rolled her eyes. "Who knows what my childhood would have been like if I had gotten proper medical care?" she asked rhetorically. "Navi gets manic, which I think she manipulates on purpose to get more done. T'Pana has OCD." As if anticipating his question, she said, "Izzy's neurotransmitters, so far, seem to be working just fine. They're keeping an eye on it in case that changes in puberty." Another roll of her eyes. "Yet another thing to look forward to as she hits her teenage years. And all of this discovered because I had a breakdown."

"It's not every day an engineer gets to say she revolutionized hybrid psychiatry," Tom joked. "And, sorry that my father can be such an asshole. In my defense, I warned you about that."

She chuckled. "That was the last time he did that," she said. "He really has been keeping out of our careers and lives unless we ask. You'd know if he didn't. He would have secured your next assignment the moment Pathfinder's first commlink connected. And every datastream thereafter, you would have had a message from Starfleet Command asking if you were ready to assume your next billet yet." He chuckled and nodded in agreement, but didn't say anything further about next assignments. "Anyway, complete neurotransmitter scans are now part of every hybrid medical exam," she continued as if he hadn't interrupted. "Dr. Bayrote apologized profusely when I went in, saying he should have picked up on it the _first_ time I had been clinically depressed. I'm just glad I got the help I needed."

"I'm trying to imagine Navi manic," Tom said, "but I keep picturing an eleven-year-old kid. I guess she's now… seventeen?" B'Elanna nodded. "Getting ready for college?"

B'Elanna snorted. "Getting ready," she scoffed. "What part of knowing Navi makes you think she'd do anything in the right timeline? No, she's a third classman at the Academy and wants to go to the Medical Academy next. She's already doing research in Dr. Zalun's lab. Hence the manipulating her manic tendencies on purpose." She still rolled her eyes in that way she had when talking about her half-sister. "She still flies," she informed him. "Nothing like you did. There were no try-outs for Nova Squadron for her, but she's enjoying seeing how many piloting certifications she can get before graduation. She's up to three." He nodded, impressed. Most cadets barely managed to complete their shuttle certification before they left the Academy. "She plays the flute in the symphony and has a boyfriend. He's terrible."

"I'm sure he's not that bad," Tom said with a smile.

"Oh, no, he is," she countered. "I'm not worried about it. She's a smart kid and will figure it out eventually. We all make terrible dating decisions as teenagers. After all, I dated Burke."

His smile faded at the name. "He died," Tom said, and she frowned at him.

"What?"

"Burke," he explained. "His ship was also captured by the Caretaker. They were a small science vessel and got hit pretty hard. He ended up promoted to first officer by default." He frowned, trying to figure out how to condense that story. "They crossed a line, morally, and then he decided to circle around and cross it again when his captain surrendered to Captain Janeway and he tried to mutiny, and it's a long story that I'm sure is going to come out in various inquests, but he died."

"Oh," she said, her eyes wide as she thought about that for a minute. "Well, like I said. We make terrible dating decisions as teenagers." He wanted to chuckle at that, but the thought of the _Equinox_ didn't put him in a chuckling mood, and she seemed to pick up on that. "Do you have to get ready for your briefing?"

He glanced at the chronometer. "Nah, I still have time. I do need more coffee, though. Someone kept me up all night." They hadn't slept at all, which was fine—B'Elanna never needed much sleep, and he planned on taking a nap after the staff briefing, while Izzy was on her tour with Naomi Wildman and B'Elanna was torturing Joe in engineering. "Dr. Bayrote was able to help with your depression?"

She nodded. "Gene therapy," she explained. "I can now make the right neurotransmitters. It really was life-changing. I don't feel like I'm fighting with myself anymore. Going back to work after parental leave really helped, too, and so did running. About a week after I went back to work, Syd commed and said she was going to run the Starfleet Marathon in the spring and asked if I wanted to run with her. Coach Ulshanov made training plans for both of us—we were both post-partum, she wanted to change up her training after a couple of disappointing marathon finishes, and I hadn't raced a marathon before. It sounded like a good challenge. And I really missed having something to train for."

"You hadn't done a marathon?" he asked with a frown. "What about the Academy Marathon?" Now that he was thinking about it, he had no memories of her complaining about that annual trek out to Danula II and the torture that every cadet had to suffer through.

She shook her head. "Track is exempted from that. It's in April, when we were in full competition mode. Not the best time to be running forty kilometers."

"That's right," he murmured. He remembered the gloating of one of his classmates, a top sprinter on the track team who could run a hundred meters pretty damn fast, but probably couldn't manage a single kilometer, much less forty, without having to take a break. "How was running with Sydney?" Sydney was built exactly as one would expect of a marathoner: she was tall, very thin, with seemingly no body fat, and she was fast. She had been the first woman to cross the finish line at the Academy Marathon each of her four years at the Academy and at one point had consistently finished in the top five whenever she raced. On the other hand, B'Elanna was a lot shorter and was built for strength and speed, not endurance. But she also had an extra lung, two additional heart chambers, and was twelve years younger than his sister. They were probably nearly equally matched.

"A lot more fun than I thought it would be," she said. He wasn't sure if he believed that; he was pretty sure Sydney was incapable of having fun. "She gets really sarcastic after the first twenty or so kilometers. And she's happy when she's running. It makes her a lot more tolerable. We've done a marathon together every year. We take turns picking the race. She likes to run in the cold, so I return the favor by picking the hottest races I can find."

"Can I join?" he asked with a smile. She snorted.

"You can join on the vacation and help Jens take care of the kids while Syd and I are running."

He groaned. "Jens is the most boring man in the universe," he complained. "I can't believe they gave him a command. How does anyone on that ship make it through a duty shift without falling asleep in their chairs?" She chuckled but didn't counter his words. The man really was intolerable. He guessed it fit, though. Personality would be wasted on Sydney.

He should probably start being nice to his sister, now that he was going to be seeing her again.

Family was complicated.

And speaking of family… "Was that when you and John started talking again?" He knew from her letters over the datastream that she had some sort of relationship with her father, but he also knew that she called him "John," never "my father" or "Dad."

"I was ready to write him off," she confessed, "but it was important to Navi that we had some sort of reconciliation. She was really insistent on it. She told me about a year ago that it had been driving her crazy that she could spend time with me, and spend time with John, but she didn't feel comfortable talking about either of us to the other. It was slow and painful at first. Izzy and I had dinner at their house about once a month, and there were times none of us would say a word the entire meal. And there were other times I ended up screaming at him and leaving halfway through. But we reached an understanding. We'll never have a normal 'father-daughter' relationship, we all know that. I may be less depressed and less angry now, but that still doesn't change the fact that I was depressed and angry for a long time because of what he did. But he really loves Izzy, and she loves him. I did invite him and T'Pana to my promotion lunch when I made full lieutenant, but that was mostly because I had news that I didn't want him to have to hear second hand from Navi."


	15. 2372

Stardate 49299  
March 2372  
San Francisco, Earth

Commander Ivar Johansen was clinking on his glass with his spoon as he rose from his chair. "May I have everyone's attention?" he asked as the conversation died down. "We all know why we're here, and I know Lt. Torres specifically asked that no fuss is made about her promotion, but we do have to have at least a little bit of fuss." The crowd, consisting of the other engineers in Johansen's group at R&D, as well as Owen and Alicia Paris, Nicki Sanders, and the three other members of the Torres family—as well as Izzy, who at that moment was trying to make a run for the door, before she was caught by one of the junior engineers—chuckled at his words. Johansen turned to the guest of honor. "B'Elanna's time with the group had an unusual start," he began, getting even more laughs. "It's not every day we get a transfer from the Theoretical Propulsion Group, that's for sure, but when B'Elanna needed a team with a bit better proximity to Starfleet Medical than Utopia Planitia could provide, we were very glad to have her come on board." She nodded her thanks, hoping that was it, but of course it wasn't. "And even though she's only been on the team for a year, it's felt like much longer. Especially to those who make the mistake of asking her a question before her third mug of coffee in the morning." She gave him a mock glare, but joined in on the laughter from everyone else. He raised his glass. "Congratulations, Lieutenant Torres. A well-deserved promotion of a brilliant engineer and fine officer." The others toasted to that. "It's now customary to stand at this part," Commander Johansen said with a smile. She gave him a long-suffering smile and rolled her eyes in return, rising before Commander Johansen placed the new pip on her collar. Her hand went to it automatically; it felt the same as the old, black one, even though she knew it looked different.

"Thank you, Commander," she said. He had warned her that she would have to give a speech; she had scowled and grumbled something under her breath when he said that, but she had known he was right. "And thank you, everyone. I never would have imagined I would end up with such a great team of engineers. Owen, Alicia, Nicki, thank you for taking me—and Izzy—in. It certainly hasn't been the year any of us thought it would be, and I don't think I could have gotten through it without you." It had been a year, almost to the day, since Starfleet's last contact with _Voyager_. In another week, it would be the one-year anniversary of Admiral Owen Paris escorting two other admirals to her work station in the TPG to tell her that _Voyager_ had disappeared, and in one more year, they would officially declare the ship lost and her crew dead.

She couldn't believe it had been a year. She still felt Tom's absence acutely. She missed him even more when she looked at Izzy, while simultaneously being grateful to have a piece of him.

"Commander Johansen and I have been working on something that we've been keeping from the rest of you—"

"Are you going to sing a duet?" Lt. Nancy Alessio interrupted.

"Nobody wants that," Torres replied, not missing a beat and earning some chuckles. "No, it's much less painful than that. Izzy and I are going back to Mars." You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that had fallen over the table. "I'm taking command of a repair company at the Ship Yard."

It was the engineers who broke the silence, all with congratulations and well wishes. It didn't escape B'Elanna's notice that none of her family seemed so excited; she had known she should have talked to them about the move before announcing it at her promotion lunch, but she had been afraid they would talk her out of it.

It had been a year. It was time to start living her life again. And she shouldn't have to feel guilty about that.

The celebration had continued that evening with a family dinner at the Paris house; the Wylands had just arrived on Earth a few hours before and the Sanders family was in from Denver, making for a lot of chaos and a lot of cousins for Izzy to run around with. She had started walking the month before, at seven months old, and started running about half an hour later, and it was obvious to everyone that Izzy's mobility was a source of annoyance for Sydney, as Alex was four months older than Izzy and preferred scooting around to walking.

After dinner, Owen retreated to his study, as he often did, and after another glass of wine with Alicia, Sydney, and Nicki, B'Elanna tried begging off to get back to their apartment in Hawaii to get Izzy down to bed. To no one's surprise, Alicia was quick to volunteer to put Izzy down in Tom's old room, the room where B'Elanna, and then her and Izzy, had lived for those several months after _Voyager_ disappeared. B'Elanna knew that this was Alicia's way of getting them to stay the night, because she knew that B'Elanna wouldn't wake her daughter if she was sleeping.

Resigned to the situation, B'Elanna headed off to Owen's study. Like she always did when she was in that space, she studied the bookshelves and the holos on them. He regularly rotated the pictures, and she wasn't surprised to see that both Alex and Izzy were now displayed. Her eyes stopped at the one holo that he never changed, the last that had been taken of Tom, two weeks before he left on _Voyager_ , when they found out she was pregnant and had taken the shuttle to San Francisco to tell his family in person. Nicki had been so excited that she had beamed over with the kids, and Ainsley had been busy the whole night documenting everything with her new holoimager. "Mars was our home," she said, her eyes still on the smiling faces of her and her husband. "We really loved it there. We had our jobs, our friends, places to climb and places to run. We weren't planning on leaving so soon. Or at all. We were looking forward to raising Izzy there." She finally looked over at her father-in-law. "I need to start living my life again."

"I didn't know you were interested in taking command," he replied, and she realized that he was hurt that she hadn't talked this over with him.

"I wasn't," she said. "I'm still not convinced that having me a leadership position isn't the worst idea anyone's come up with, but Ivar started pushing it as soon as the promotion list came out." She gave a slight smile. "He was concerned about how non-traditional my career path has been," she said dryly, which finally made Owen smile. "I started in a research position, and the went to a subject-matter expert position on the _Voyager_ team because of my research on the integration of those damn bioneural gel packs with propulsion systems, and then I went into another research position, and now I'm in another research position. Most engineers start in junior billets on ships or as team leads at ship yards. I have no maintenance, repair, or leadership experience as a full lieutenant, and there's no way I'd make it past lieutenant without those. I'm going to run out of billets I'm eligible for. Ivar wanted me to take a ship position, either a team lead on a big ship or as a deputy on a smaller ship, but he couldn't find any openings on any of the larger ships and I wouldn't be able to take Izzy on a smaller one. And I'm not leaving my daughter." There was an edge of warning in her voice, making sure he didn't suggest that he and Alicia would be happy to watch Izzy while she did a ship rotation. "Captain Sisko requested a few months ago that I go to DS9, to add to the Klingon presence in Starfleet uniforms to help deal with the Klingon presence in Klingon uniforms that were around due to this damn conflict they have with the Cardassians. It only took one transmission with him to convince him that a mongrel raised on a Federation colony was _not_ what he needed if his goal was dealing with the Klingons. And I don't know what he expected I'd be able to do as an engineer." She had heard that Lt. Commander Worf had been permanently transferred to the station; she had never met the security officer, but sure he was a much better fit for what Sisko was looking for. "So that obviously didn't go anywhere. One of Ivar's former Academy roommates is Commander Adam Winters, the construction battalion commander on UP. Ivar commed Winters, who just happened to be looking for a new company commander. And then it took another month to talk me into it."

"It's a good opportunity for you," Owen finally said. He sighed. "You do know Alicia's going to find a way to blame me for this."

She smiled at that, because she knew it wasn't true. Alicia had raised three kids around Owen's Starfleet schedule. They moved between ships and stations when Sydney and Nicki were little; by the time Tom was born, Owen was a captain, and Alicia and the kids largely lived on Earth while Owen went on missions. And then she watched as each of her children put on that same uniform and do largely the same thing.

If anyone understood how to have a family in Starfleet, it was Alicia Paris.

"We're not going to be on DS9," she reminded him. "Izzy and I will only be a three hour shuttle ride away. It'll be like we never left."


	16. 2372

Stardate 49579  
June 2372  
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. B'Elanna Torres lifted Izzy to her hip as the shuttle came to a stop. "Down!" the toddler shouted.

"In a minute," Torres replied as she grabbed their bag. Her patience was already worn just about as thin as it would get from spending the last three hours trying to keep her daughter from disturbing any of the other passengers on the Mars-Earth shuttle, and wondered for the third time in the three months since they moved to Mars why she went through this hassle. In this case, it was for Izzy's first birthday party the next day, and then the Starfleet Marathon with Sydney the following day.

The whole weekend was going to be painful. A toddler's birthday party with far too many people—including John, whom she still didn't like but promised Navi she'd try to—and then too many kilometers with a sister-in-law who was too competitive. And then she would have to turn around and repeat the whole damn shuttle experience on Sunday evening to return back home.

She and Izzy joined the group of officers waiting to beam down to Starfleet Headquarters, and a few minutes later, they found themselves in the main transporter room at Headquarters. "Down!" Izzy insisted again, struggling against her mother's hold.

"Izzy!" Torres snapped, getting the attention of a few passing officers. She took a deep breath. "We're almost at Grandpa's office and there are a lot of people here. I'm going to carry you until we get there, okay?"

When she didn't get a response, she looked over at her daughter to see Izzy giving her an angry look. Well, at least she was going to be quiet about it. For once.

They arrived at Owen Paris's outer office a few minutes later, and as promised, Torres set Izzy down as soon as the outer doors closed behind them. Izzy immediately began running around in circles. "Good morning, Lieutenant," said the admiral's new aide, a small Haliian lieutenant in the teal of the sciences. Her eyes briefly darted to Izzy before returning to Torres. "He's in there with Dr. Sanders," she added.

"Thanks," Torres replied. "C'mon, Izzy. Let's see Grandpa and Aunt Nicki."

"Au'cki!" Izzy exclaimed, changing direction to head toward the now-open door to Paris' inner office.

"Hey, bug," Nicki said, turning toward the door at the sound of Izzy's approximation of her name. She bent down in her chair to pick up the toddler. "And, hello, B'Elanna. How was the trip?"

Torres sighed as she collapsed into an empty chair. "She doesn't do boredom well. Almost like she's related to Tom." She picked up on the fact that she interrupted a serious discussion, and a quick glance at the chronometer told her that Nicki should have been in clinic for another twenty minutes or so. "No clinic today?"

"My last patient before lunch cancelled, so I figured I'd wait for you and this little Paris-ite here," she explained. She gave Izzy a kiss on the head before setting her back down on the ground, and then glanced over at her father before continuing, "We were discussing assignments," she said.

"Are you going somewhere?" Torres knew Nicki's hybridology training would be completed in about two months, and wondered if Starfleet Medical was large enough for two hybrid pediatricians.

"I'm pregnant, so no," Nicki said matter-of-factly, making Torres blink in surprise.

"Congratulations," she said.

"Thanks. The first trimester is kicking my ass. This was a lot easier when I was a decade younger." She rolled her eyes. "It's another boy, so Ainsley is currently not talking to either me or Jason. Coming to a delivery room near you in February. But I was going to be staying at Starfleet Medical anyway. Solaris has been in San Francisco since graduating from Hopkins and has been itching for an opportunity to go _anywhere_ else. He's headed toward DS9."

"DS9?" Torres echoed with a frown. She remembered her conversation with Starfleet Command, then Captain Sisko. "That's right in the middle of two different wars. I doubt there are that many kids on DS9 right now, hybrid or otherwise."

"He's not going as a hybrid pediatrician," Sanders explained. "More of special advisor. We're still learning about the Jem'Hadar, about their biology, anatomy, physiology. We hybridologists learn how to evaluate the medical needs of people we don't have data on. When we do that for hybrids, we have the knowledge of both parental species to fall back on, but we're still better at it for new species than other physicians. That's what he's going to be working on." She glanced over at Admiral Paris, and then back at Torres. "That's not what Dad and I were talking about, though."

"Let's replicate lunch here," Paris interjected. "I'd rather not discuss this in the mess. Even the Admiral's Mess."

Torres frowned, trying to figure out what was so sensitive that it couldn't be discussed in public. She knew about the attacks in Paris and on the power grid, of course—even living on Mars, she couldn't escape news of Earth—but when the whole thing seemed to resolve itself as soon as it had happened, she stopped thinking about it. She was largely uninterested in politics, as long as politics remained uninterested in her and let her continue to do her engineering in peace.

She wondered if Owen's hesitancy was an indication that that might not continue forever.

They replicated lunches and moved to the conference table, while Izzy played with some of the toys that Owen kept for when his grandchildren stopped by; B'Elanna knew that there was no point in trying to get Izzy to sit with them and eat. She'd let them know when she was ready for food. "The attack on Earth really worried Ainsley," Sanders said between bites of her salad. "Even though she knows, on an intellectual level, at least, that the whole thing was orchestrated. She's back on her worry about me joining Starfleet, and I have to admit, there are moments I wonder if she has a point."

"If the Changelings are going to attack Earth, I doubt Denver is going to be any safer than San Francisco," Torres pointed out.

"I don't think it's my physical location that has her worried. I think it's the idea that I'm going to be deployed on a ship somewhere that's significantly more dangerous than either Denver or San Francisco."

"You're pregnant," Torres pointed out. "They're not going to send you anywhere outside the system until your baby is at least six months old. And for all when know, this will be over by then."

"I don't think we can count them out that quickly," Owen said. Both his daughter and daughter-in-law turned to him, eyebrows raised. He raised his hands defensively. "I'm not going to say anything either of you isn't cleared for," he said. "But I can say that a lot of scientific and exploratory projects are being moved to areas with more clearly defined defensive results."

Nicki had grown up with her father's stories and lectures, and B'Elanna was enough like her father-in-law to know how that when he wanted to say something, the best thing to do would be stay quiet until he did, and sure enough, he resumed speaking. "I want this all to be over in the next month or so, but I just don't see that happening. I've never seen this level of preparation from Starfleet. Not during the Cardassian wars, the Galen border conflicts, the Tzenkethi war, or even when the shit was hitting the fan with the Borg. We're facing a more cunning enemy than we've ever encountered before. We can't focus our attention on the Dominion while we're dealing with this Klingon-Cardassian business going on, and because Changelings can be anywhere and anyone, nobody trusts anybody. After all, Leyton almost succeeded in a military coup." He looked pained at that, and Torres felt a surge of guilt that she hadn't thought about the betrayal he would feel that one of his fellow admirals—maybe his friend?—would do such a thing. "And I've had so many blood tests over the last two months that I'm a little amazed each time that I have any blood left." He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Nicki, you're not going anywhere for more than a year, and if this business is still going on when your parental deployment waiver is lifted, Starfleet Medical caps deployments at 90 days. You'll be fine."

"A lot can happen in 90 days," Nicki pointed out.

"A lot can happen in a year," Owen replied. "This whole thing might be over by then, one way or the other. No need worrying about it now. You can tell Ainsley I said that." He turned to his daughter-in-law and sighed again. "You will not believe the number of questions I've had from my colleagues about my Klingon daughter-in-law and how she can help the war effort." Torres snorted and rolled her eyes, and Owen smiled slightly. "That's pretty much what I say," he agreed. "You have a very important job right now. We're anticipating needing a lot of repairs as things heat up. Nobody's going to be reassigning a repair company commander, even though we will both probably have to explain a number of times about why a half-Klingon engineer isn't the panacea we need in this Klingon situation. When your command is up next year, though, it's harder to say what's going to happen."

"I'm not leaving Izzy," she said emphatically.

"You might not have a choice," he replied.

"I will resign my commission first," she promised. "Starfleet already took away her father, Owen. I'm not going to let them take me, too."

He looked sad at the words, but he nodded slowly. "I know," he said. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there." His eyes traveled between the two women again. "I didn't mean for this to get doom-and-gloom," he admitted. "We've got uncertainty ahead of us, but not for a while. In the meantime, we keep doing what we're doing. We're Starfleet officers; sometimes, that's all we can do. And until then," a large grin spread over his face as he turned to his granddaughter, now spinning around in a circle while holding a toy ship over her head. "We have a one-year-old to spoil. Get over here, Izzy. Grandpa wants to play shuttles, too."


	17. 2372

Stardate 49581  
July 2372  
San Francisco, Earth

B'Elanna Torres was curled up in a chair in the den, mostly focused on the reports she was reviewing, but part of her attention dedication to the sound of children playing out in the yard and part dedicated to how much her legs hurt. The Starfleet Marathon had been that morning, and just as she—and, she was willing to bet, Coach Ulshanov—had expected, Sydney had pushed harder than the planned pace. It was a gamble that had paid off, her first finish under three hours in a few years, although she had confessed immediately that it hurt and it was only her need to stay with her younger, marathon-distance-naïve sister-in-law—who had been doing all that she could to keep up with Sydney for 42.2 kilometers—that kept her moving.

And somehow, mere minutes after they crossed the finish line, Torres found herself agreeing to doing another the following year, as long as she picked the location. She really wished she knew why it was so hard for her to say no to members of the Paris family.

Torres and Izzy would be taking the shuttle back to Mars in a couple of hours, but the Wylands were staying a few more nights before the _Pathrind_ departed again. Kajsa and Stephanie were enjoying playing with their cousin without all the distractions of everyone who had been at her first birthday party the day before, and B'Elanna was hoping that they'd tire her out to the point that she would sleep the entire trip back home.

Part of her couldn't believe that she had had Izzy for an entire year already—and that she had kept her alive that long—and part of her couldn't believe that it had only been a year. At times, she found it hard to remember what her life was like before everything had been scheduled around the needs of the newborn, then infant, and now toddler.

She returned her full attention to her reports and smiled slightly at what she saw on the next, one of ships recommended for decommissioning. The chiefs always reviewed the ships that came in for repairs and made recommendations regarding whether it should be repaired or scrapped. She had to review the reports and examine the ships herself, but had yet to disagree with any assessment the chiefs had made. She knew this one would be no exemption, because S-class shuttles had been phased out more than a decade before; any time one came to a repair company, it was removed from the fleet and replaced by something much more suitable to, well, any space travel.

With a slight smile, she sent the report over to Owen, sitting a few meters away in a chair of his own. He must have opened the attachment immediately, because she heard a snort of laughter a few seconds later. "I didn't know there were any Ses left," he commented.

"It must be one of the last ones," she agreed. She checked the report again, to see if she could figure out how it had escaped notice for over a decade. "It looks like it was in a retired admiral's private hangar. She died last year and her son just found it." She was a little impressed with said deceased retired admiral and the fact that she had hid Starfleet property—an S-class shuttle was pretty small, but still an entire shuttlecraft—for forty years after retirement. "It's going to be decommissioned. I'm going to request it, instead of sending it for scrap."

He frowned slightly, glancing over at her before skimming the report. "It's in bad shape," he finally said. It was; she doubted the thing had flown in the forty years in had been in that hangar.

"I figure I still have about seven years to fix it up," she said dryly, making him smile sadly. "It'll be a good project," she said. "I've never broken down a shuttle and built it back up from the studs before." She didn't say it out loud, but she wanted that shuttle, wanted to be the one to rebuild it, because S-class shuttles would always make her think about Tom's story of learning how to fly with his father, and she felt like fixing that shuttle up and making it able to fly again would be like bringing a piece of him back. The man loved anything that flew, but there was a special place in his heart for shuttles and other small ships; not only were they what he learned to fly on, but they were smaller and a hell of a lot more maneuverable than full starships, which gave him much more opportunity to show off his flying skills. He was always thinking of ways to "improve" shuttles to make them even more maneuverable, which usually involved compromises in systems that really shouldn't be compromised. He used to dream of designing his own shuttle from scratch; B'Elanna would warn him that he should keep such fantasies quiet at work, or he'd find himself reassigned from R&D's test pilot division to their ship design division.

And he loved tinkering with anything he could find to tinker with. She smiled slightly at the memories of lazy weekends in the Parises hangar, working on the family shuttle. Tom would tinker with something—usually something that didn't need tinkering with—and B'Elanna would insist that he stop and just let her fix whatever needed to be fixed, before he broke anything further. Or ended up changing something that resulted in someone flying the damn thing into a lake.

"It's going to be a lot of work," Owen said warningly. She snorted.

"I'm the commander of a repair company," she said dryly. "That would be pretty embarrassing if I couldn't repair a sub-warp two-seater."

"You already have a lot on your plate," he pointed out, "and you're going have a lot more, if this war with the Dominion goes the way a lot of people think it's going to go." She frowned, reading between the lines of what he was saying and not saying.

"Why don't you want me to do this?" she asked.

"I don't not want you—"

"Owen!"

Kahless. Why were the Paris men so difficult?

He sighed. "You said you wanted to live your life," he said. "I just want to make sure you're living _your_ life. Not Tom's."

It was her turn to sigh. She didn't quite know how to explain this to him, this need to hold on to the things that reminded her of Tom, because she was terrified that by the time Izzy was old enough to start asking for stories about her father, that she wouldn't remember any to tell. But it was more than that; independent of Izzy, she craved things that reminded her of Tom, of the time they were dating and the fourteen months they were married, as if she needed to remind herself that those years had existed, that he had existed. It always brought her a stab of pain, which was somehow a relief. She didn't want to think about what would happen when the thought of him missing from her life didn't hurt anymore. "Going out in that shuttle when he was eight was one of his favorite memories," she finally said. Owen's sad smile returned.

"It's one of mine, too," he confided.

"Izzy's never going to know her father," she said, "but I want her to feel connected to him. I want her to have the opportunity to learn how to fly the same way her father did."

"I wish she could," Owen said, "because that would mean her father was still around to take her up in that shuttle and hand off the controls."


	18. 2377

Stardate 54468.8  
October 2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager_  
Alpha Quadrant

"Do we seriously have an S-class shuttle?" Lt. Tom Paris asked excitedly. After a pointless and very distractible senior staff meeting at 0800, he met up again with B'Elanna, Izzy, and his father for breakfast, before they went their separate ways for the duty day—B'Elanna to engineering, Owen back to Captain Janeway's ready room for more planning of _Voyager_ 's arrival back to Earth, Izzy to her tour with Naomi Wildman, and Tom for a quick nap.

"'We'?" B'Elanna echoed with an amused look. " _I'm_ the one who rescued it from the scrap yard, broke every system down to its base parts, repaired or replaced almost every single component, had to figure out a way to transport it to Earth, had to find a hangar space for it on Earth, and put everything back together again. You'll be lucky if I let you _look_ at it."

"She barely lets me look at it, too," Izzy reassured him.

"You were my biggest helper on that repair," B'Elanna pointed out to their daughter.

"But nobody else helped you," Izzy pointed out, seeming confused. She turned back to her father. "Mom says I can fly it someday, but she says it isn't ready yet."

"Sorry I'm so concerned for your safety," B'Elanna replied. She smirked over at her husband before returning her attention to her daughter. "But now you have an actual test pilot around, so we can make sure it's ready to go."

"I'm your guinea pig?" he asked with a smirk of his own.

"I think flying newly repaired ships before anybody else is actually in your job description," she pointed out. "You saying you don't trust my engineering?"

He snorted. "If I didn't trust your engineering, we'd still be somewhere in the Delta quadrant." He had a hard time believing that that's where they were only twenty-four hours before; so much had happened since then. "It's just... been a long time since I was a test pilot." The last six and a half years had been spent on _Voyager_ , and while there were certainly moments—and months—of excitement, for the most part, he was just a chief helmsman.

More than half of his career had been spent doing the job that he had been so unwilling to do that he stopped talking to his father for almost a year because of their fight about it. And now sometimes he forgot that he had had another job before it. He just didn't think of himself as a test pilot anymore, and it was almost surreal to realize that that was still what B'Elanna thought of him as. The last time he had been a test pilot had been…

And then he remembered that he did have a much more recent stint as a test pilot than when he took _Voyager_ out for an ill-fated shake-down cruise. "We're going to be staying put for another day or two," he said thoughtfully. "If there's nothing going on this afternoon, I'll ask Captain Janeway if I can take Izzy out on the _Delta Flyer_."

"The _Delta Flyer_?" Torres asked.

"Your husband's girlfriend," Lt. Carey said lightly, hearing the tail end of the conversation as he approached their table. His eyes widened as he realized that he probably shouldn't make such jokes to a lieutenant commander in front of an admiral.

Fortunately, B'Elanna smirked at the joke. "Ah, right, your shuttle."

Paris gave her a put-out look. "The _Delta Flyer_ is much more than a shuttle," he said indignantly. B'Elanna chuckled.

"I told you to be careful with those ship design dreams," she teased. "I'd love to see it, when we get the chance, but that's probably not going to happen until we're back on Earth." She stood from the table and gave Tom a quick kiss before dropping another on top of her daughter's head. "Enjoy your tour and don't break your dad's shuttle."

"It's not a shuttle!" he called out after her as she and Carey headed out of the mess.

* * *

Lt. Paris entered the mess hall after his nap to find Naomi Wildman and Izzy giggling in a corner table, a kadis-kot board between them, a reddish gold head leaning close to one covered in dark curls. "Ladies," he greeted with a nod, which sent them both into a fresh round of giggles.

"Hi, Lt. Paris," Naomi said. "I'm teaching Izzy how to play kadis-kot."

"Who's winning?"

"I think Naomi," Izzy replied. "But I don't really know all the rules yet."

"It's easy once you get the hang of it," Naomi said. "We can play later if you need to go."

"Dad said we're going to go out in the _Delta Flyer_ ," Izzy said excitedly. "Do you fly?"

"No," Naomi said. "My mom said I'll learn when I'm older."

"I've never flown a real ship," Izzy said. "The flight league only lets kids fly in simulators until they're ten. But I'm the best in my age group. I broke the record for five- and six-year-olds right after I turned six." She grinned up at her father, the same victorious grin her mother had when she won an argument, before turning back to Naomi. "I broke my dad's record."

"And you still have a lot of records to go before you get all of them," Paris reminded her. He had thought he would be sad when the oldest of his records, from the simulator division of the same junior flight league Izzy now competed in, had fallen, but when B'Elanna had laughingly told him via the datastream that Izzy had broken the record by 1.2 seconds, he felt mostly pride. And some sadness; not at the fallen record, but at the fact that he hadn't been there to coach her.

They entered the shuttlebay and headed over to where the _Delta Flyer_ was parked. "Has your grandfather taught you about following a pre-flight checklist?" he asked.

"He said if you don't do it, you'll end up flying a ship into Lake Tahoe," she replied. He gave a snort of laughter.

"Well, he's not wrong," he had to admit. He handed her a PADD with the checklist for the _Delta Flyer_ and they went through it together. She was a smart kid; he had known that from their letters over the datastream, but he had figured that would be the case from the beginning. She was B'Elanna's daughter.

Her eyes widened when they entered the ship and headed for the front stations. "This ship is so cool!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide at the sight of the tactical controls.

"It's going to be a lot different to fly than the simulators you're used to," he warned before they went through the rest of the pre-flight checklist.

He took the left console, which was the main pilot controls, but he had intentionally designed the ship to be flown from either station. "Have a seat," he said, gesturing to the other side.

"Are we going to fly it?" she asked excitedly as she sat. He looked over at her and smiled at how small she looked in that seat.

"That's up to whoever has the conn on _Voyager_ ," he replied. "Do you want to ask?"

"Me?" she asked.

"Why not?" he asked with a shrug. "I'll open a channel, and then you say, _Voyager_ , this is _Delta Flyer_ , requesting permission to launch. You got that?"

Her eyes were wide as she nodded excitedly. He opened the channel, and then gestured for her to speak. " _Voyager_ , this is the _Delta Flyer_ , requesting permission to launch," she said obediently.

*Delta Flyer, _this is_ Voyager,* Commander Chakotay's amused voice replied. _*Permission granted. Stay within transporter range, Miss Paris.*_

"Aye, sir," she replied. Her eyes widened again and she turned back to her father. "I don't know how to launch a shuttle," she admitted. He chuckled.

"That's okay," he said. "I'll take us out. You don't have to fly if you don't want to."

He was teasing with that last line, and just as expected, she whipped her head toward him so quickly that her hair flew and hit her in her face. "But I want to!" she exclaimed as she swatted at her errant hair.

"Actual flying is different from simulators," he said, struggling to keep from laughing at the anguished look on her face.

"But Dad—"

And then he did laugh. "I'm joking, Izzy," he said. "I'll turn over the controls as soon as we're a safe distance from _Voyager_."

The look she gave him was a combination of exasperated, annoyed, and excited, and she must have gotten it from her mother.

He took the _Flyer_ out and took it out a good distance from _Voyager_ , and then cut the engines and came to an all-stop, Izzy almost shaking with excitement. "You ready?" he asked, getting an excited nod in reply. He transferred primary helm control to her console and switched it to manual control. "It's on manual, so the computer isn't going to correct your commands." She nodded again, this time impatiently, her hands hovering over the controls. "The conn's yours, so go ahead and go when you're ready." He kept his voice calm, but his hands were clenching his armrests, because he knew exactly how this would go.

As predicted, the ship lurched forward, the internal dampers not able to keep up with the sudden movement. Izzy made a yelping noise, her hands flying from the controls in surprise, and Paris was thrown back in his seat as the ship abruptly stopped. "Never take your hands off the controls," he said firmly. She turned to him, her eyes wide.

"Why did it do that?" she demanded.

"Because we're on manual," he said calmly.

" _Why?_ "

"Because that's how you learn how to fly. You have to learn how the ship responds to your commands in order to learn how to give them." He stopped abruptly, remembering a conversation in a holo training suite a decade before, a half-Klingon plebe almost gleeful as she smacked him around with a _bat'leth_ with the safeties low, because you can't learn how to block an advance unless you feel the consequences of those advances.

Well, it had worked well enough for him to ace that presentation for his combatives course. And apparently well enough for him to steal her teaching technique to apply to teaching flight lessons.

"Do you want to give it another try?" She looked hesitant, but took a deep breath and a slow nod. "Okay," he said. "Keep your hands on the controls, and let's do it gently this time."

They ended up spending five hours out on the _Delta Flyer_ , and after the first few awkward attempts at controlling the shuttle, Izzy seemed to get the hang of it rather quickly and was genuinely disappointed when they got the hail from _Voyager_ asking them to come back in for the night.

She was very excited to talk about her flying adventures with her grandfather and Captain Janeway; B'Elanna was, to no one's surprise, still in engineering and had made some vague statements about stopping at some point. After they finished eating, Tom and Izzy went back to his quarters to watch cartoons until B'Elanna was done. Even though he was pretty sure they'd both be asleep before she pulled herself away from whatever extensive diagnostic she was running.

Sure enough, Izzy was asleep on the couch and using Tom's lap as a pillow and he wasn't far off when the doors to his quarters slid open a few minutes after midnight. "Hey," B'Elanna said quietly, a smile on her face.

"Hey," Tom replied. He nodded down to their daughter. "She fell asleep about an hour ago. I don't want to wake her up."

B'Elanna's smile widened. "She's a heavy sleeper," she said, lifting Izzy's head to free him. "She doesn't sleep as much as they say six-year-olds are supposed to, but when she's out, she's out." She replaced Izzy's head on a pillow and got some incoherent murmuring from the child. "Do you have a blanket? She'll end up kicking it off in an hour, but I still like to pretend."

The only one he had needed for the last six and a half years was the one on his bed, so he replicated a new one. B'Elanna smoothed it over Izzy and gave her a kiss on the top of her head before they moved to the sleeping compartment of the quarters. "How's engineering?" Tom asked.

"Things look good," B'Elanna said. "I think we'll be good to start moving tomorrow, maybe in the afternoon. I have another diagnostic running now."

"How's Joe?" Tom asked. "Neither of us had been sleeping much the last few weeks."

"I sent him back to his quarters around 1700," B'Elanna said. "He was getting tired. I think everyone on this ship earned a few months of leave when we get back." He did have to agree with that.

Even though B'Elanna rarely went to bed before 0300, she changed and crawled into bed with him. "Good day?" she asked as she settled her head on his chest, and it struck him that, for the first time, his whole family was in one place. It was his quarters on _Voyager_ , but it was a place to start.

"I think we have a pretty great kid," he replied. She chuckled.

"Of course you'd think so," she said dryly. "That girl has always been her father's daughter. Is your shuttle still in one piece?"

"It's not a shuttle," he reminded her, getting another chuckle. "She has talent," he said. "A lot more than I had when I was a kid."

"She does love to fly," she agreed. "She was a good assistant on rebuilding that S-class, but I know which side of the helm she'd rather be on."

"What happened next?" he asked. She thought about that for a minute.

"Company command was hard," she finally said. "I had some great mechanics, but I had some troublemakers, too. Almost enough to make me feel sorry for my first company commander." He couldn't help but laugh and nod in agreement; she had been a lot of work. But worth it. "We were busy, just like Owen predicted, but we—Izzy and I—fell into the rhythm of things and had our routines. I took up mountain biking, when I had the time, because a lot of other officers in the battalion did it and it was the best way to socialize with them without having to actually socialize. Things were…normal. And then it was actually Sarah—Carey—who reminded me that they weren't."


	19. 2373

Stardate 50188  
February 2373  
Mars Station, Mars

Lt. B'Elanna Torres removed another driver coil and scanned it, muttering under her breath before placing it in the "replace" pile on the hangar floor, a pile that was rapidly outgrowing the "repair" pile to the other side.

"Don't tell your grandfather, but I think he was right. This shuttle is hardly worth the headache," Torres said to Izzy, who was engrossed in watching something on a PADD and clearly not listening. "Doesn't help that the person I'm repairing it for couldn't be bothered to care," she added. To be fair, she didn't exactly expect the 19-month-old to have much interest in a collection of loose and broken parts that only barely resembled a shuttle. Although at this rate, it would still be a collection of loose and broken that only barely resembled a shuttle by the time Izzy was old enough to care.

She didn't know what it said about her state of mind that most of her best hours recently had been those that she had spent in that hangar with a toddler who was ignoring her, hunched over a shuttle that would require a small miracle to fly again. Work was rewarding but hard, with a small handful of her one hundred or so mechanics taking up the majority of her time and attention and too much time being a commander and not enough being an engineer. Running was still a favorite escape, of course, but with still five months to go until her next marathon—Madagascar, which Sydney was already grumbling would be too hot—her training was haphazard at best. She had started mountain biking with some of the other company commanders and staff officers in the battalion a few months after she arrived, and while she enjoyed it, adding more social interactions to a long work day of social interactions made it that much more tiring.

It was actually mountain biking that led her to her hangar that afternoon; the non-commissioned officers and chief warrant officers spent Thursday afternoons training the mechanics, and Commander Winters liked to use the downtime for the officers for group physical training. That day, they had taken their bikes up to Pavonis Mons, but the ride was cut short by a medical evacuation when Lt. Commander Zalty had a spectacular crash that resulted in a concussion and broken collarbone. She would be fine, but Winters had called it a day before he found himself in a situation that would leave him even more short-staffed the next day. And instead of going back to work on something that wasn't that urgent, Torres had taken Izzy out of daycare and brought her to the hangar. Where B'Elanna was finding more components that needed to be replaced, and Izzy was watching a Flotter cartoon on a PADD.

Quality time. Or something.

She had just removed another driver coil and began the process of scanning it when the computer chimed. _*Incoming transmission from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Earth. Identification: Sarah Carey. Accept?*_

"Accept, on screen," Torres replied, turning toward the communication console in her small hangar. She searched her memory, trying to remember if she knew anyone from Pennsylvania.

As soon as the transmission connected and the woman's face appeared, she remembered. Joe Carey had been an ensign in engineering of...some ship that had been laid over at UP for a few months when Torres was an ensign. He had been out of the sector for a year without a break before that point, so Sarah and the boys had moved to Mars for those few months to be with him. They were older than her and Tom—he had been an ensign, but had been an enlisted mechanic for several years before attending the Academy—and she didn't remember how they had met, but she and Tom had had dinner over at their temporary house a few times in those months. They were...normal, which Torres had found somewhat refreshing. And then Ensign Carey went back out on his ship, Sarah and the boys went back to Pennsylvania, and they had fallen out of touch.

Until Torres saw him again in engineering on _Voyager_ in the last few weeks before the launch. Since he hadn't been assigned to the station, she was sure that that meant that he had met the same fate as her husband.

Sarah was plain, almost mousy, but had been nice and charmingly witty, and now smiled over at Torres from across space. _*I hope this isn't a bad time,*_ she started. Torres glanced at her PADD; it was almost 1700 Mars time; she didn't care nearly enough to try to determine what time that made it in Pennsylvania.

"No, not at all," she replied. It was actually one of the best times to talk, as she wasn't at work and wasn't actively chasing a toddler or around or trying to convince her to eat or sleep.

Before she could ask why Sarah was calling, the woman answered the question for her. _*There's going to be a private reception for partners and children following_ Voyager's _memorial next week,*_ she said. _*I tried sending an invitation, but I didn't receive a response. I just wanted to check that you received it.*_

"Oh." To be honest, Torres had forgotten about the upcoming memorial service for the _Voyager_ crew. She had no intention of going; not only was it on Earth and thus required a trip on the shuttle and at least a few days of leave, but she hated big ceremonies. And so did Tom; even their wedding had been a very small and private affair. The thought of putting herself—and Izzy—through a ridiculous Starfleet ceremony that the person they were remembering wouldn't want didn't appeal to her in the least. "I did, and I meant to respond; it just slipped my mind. I'm not planning on attending."

 _*The reception?*_ Sarah asked.

"The memorial," Torres clarified. "It's not really my thing. Or Tom's. And traveling on the shuttle with a toddler is not the easiest thing. Especially my toddler." She didn't know how to explain the rest of it, that she didn't want to be around other people's grief—or lack thereof. She didn't want to have to compare her grief to other people who had lost what she had lost, didn't want to have to explain why she had no interest in "moving on," didn't want to be "gently" reminded of how young she was and how she still had plenty of time to find someone else to grow old with, didn't know how to explain that there would be no "moving on," that Tom was still her husband, even if the Federation said he was dead, even if she actually saw that he was dead and had a body to bury. She didn't want to explain that, although she had been widowed for longer than she had been married, that she still considered herself to be married to him and always would.

And she didn't want to have to explain she had no interest in "moving on," even if nothing else applied. She had been a loner for most of her life, different from everyone around her, and she learned how to be content in her own company from an early age. It was only through his determined and patient persistence that Tom had broken through the barriers that she had long ago erected. She missed him every day, but she didn't regret being "alone" in a relationship sense and was content that each day started and ended with just her and Izzy.

Sarah smiled that way that all mothers smiled to each other, that smile that said she had understood the difficulties of life with a toddler and had been there, and B'Elanna knew that that was true. The youngest Carey boy, Patrick, had been a little older than Izzy was now, and the elder, Sean, only three years older, when the Careys were temporarily living on Mars, and that couldn't have been an easy shuttle ride in either direction. _*I understand if you can't make it,*_ she said. _*But I really wish you could. It would be good to see you again and to meet your daughter. Even after two years, these things are still so hard, and a toddler would certainly add some much-needed levity.*_

B'Elanna snorted. "You haven't met Izzy," she pointed out. "She could be some much-needed levity, or she could be a holy terror. Or both in the same day."

Sarah laughed, an honest, delighted laugh. _*I'm enjoying my sons at the age they are now, but I'd be lying if I said I missed the toddler years. Everyone moans about how difficult everything is—and it certainly was—but, gods, they were entertaining.*_

Torres snorted. "'Entertaining' could be one word for it," she agreed. "Some days, 'mortifying' could be as well." And she wouldn't trade one moment of it. At least, in retrospect. Some of Izzy's more enthusiastic temper tantrums had been pretty trying while they were happening. "Let me talk to my commander and my in-laws. I'll see what we can do."


	20. 2373

Stardate 50193  
February 2373  
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. B'Elanna Torres sighed and began gathering Izzy's things at the notification that the shuttle was approaching the docking port. "C'mon, Izzy," she said with another sigh. She was far too busy at work to be dealing with this: the shuttle, the days of leave, the long weekend away, the memorial service she didn't even want to attend for a husband who also wouldn't have wanted to attend.

She wondered what he would suggest doing instead, and she immediately knew the answer: whatever his hobby of the moment was. Rock-climbing, sailing, a new holodeck program that he wrote, "restoring" a replication of an ancient automobile, tinkering with a shuttle. The possibilities were endless, and even though it had been two years since he had subjected her to one of his new whims, she still rolled her eyes and smiled at the memory.

She wondered when she had gotten so sentimental. Back when he was alive, she did little more than tolerate his hobbies—with the exception of the climbing; that one was fun—but now that he was gone, she missed them, missed his excitement as he started a new hobby and the way he would beg her to join him.

She missed _him._ Even though she still didn't fully understand why she fell in love with him in the first place.

Izzy was cranky, probably because her bedtime had passed sometime while they were on the shuttle, although it was hard to tell on the Mars-Earth shuttle. A Martian day was 39 minutes longer than an Earth day; those who lived on Mars easily adjusted to the slightly longer day, but it made communication and travel between the travel a little… interesting. It took a little over a month for the days to align, and despite the frequent travel back to Earth and frequent communications with Starfleet Engineering, B'Elanna never bothered to learn the patterns. She just checked the chronometer whenever she needed to, but she was an adult who understood why things were a little bit off. She couldn't exactly blame Izzy for being a little bit cranky for being thrown off. "Let's get to Grandma and Grandpa's, and then you can throw whatever temper tantrum you need," Torres said to the toddler.

"No!" Izzy protested, immediately dissolving into tears.

"Or just start your tantrum now, that works, too," Torres muttered. She lifted the still-protesting toddler to her hip. She figured those giving her sympathetic looks in the transporter line were parents themselves.

Izzy's tantrum had devolved into full sobbing by the time they crossed the threshold of the Paris household. "Someone's unhappy," Alicia observed from the living room, where she and Nicki were sitting, a bottle of wine between them and a sleeping newborn against Nicki's chest.

"We have wine," Nicki offered.

"I'll be back for some after I put this one to bed."

"No bed!" Izzy screamed before returning to her sobbing.

"Isela Miral Paris. That is enough," B'Elanna said sternly. Izzy didn't seem to care, prompting a sigh from her mother. "Say good-night to your grandmother and Aunt Nicki."

"No!"

"Suit yourself." B'Elanna gave her in-laws an apologetic smile before heading for the stairs.

It took forty-five minutes to get the toddler calmed down enough to brush her teeth and lay down in bed to listen to a story. Halfway into the tale, she fell asleep so abruptly that B'Elanna checked her breathing. Confident that her child was still alive, she spent a few minutes just watching her, her small chest rising and falling rhythmically, her features in a calm expression of peace she rarely had while awake. She was too big for the crib that was still in Tom's old room and too restless to share a bed with B'Elanna for either of them to get any decent sleep; she'd soon have to move down to the "grandkid" room, Nicki's old room converted with several bunkbeds for Kajsa and Stephanie—and Ainsley, when she wanted to have a sleepover with her cousins instead of beaming back to Denver—and the thought made B'Elanna strangely sad. She didn't mind Izzy growing up, and rather looked forward to her becoming a little bit more independent and rational; her sadness came from marking time by her daughter's life. When Tom had died, there were still no outward signs of Izzy's existence. Now she was a toddler, with a big personality, and almost old enough for the grandkid room. Soon, she'd be in school, and before any of them knew it, she'd be moving out of the house and starting her own life.

B'Elanna swallowed the melancholy and gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead. "If only you were always this agreeable," she murmured before crawling out of the bed to get that promised glass of wine from Alicia and Nicki.

"Tell me about the wine," she said as she grabbed an empty glass and the bottle.

"It has alcohol," Nicki replied.

"My favorite kind," B'Elanna said as she poured herself a generous glass. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I beam over sometimes," Nicki said with a shrug. "I have no schedule while on parental leave. And it gives everyone else a break from being around a newborn." It didn't seem like anyone would need a break from that newborn; although it was only the second time B'Elanna had seen him in his three weeks of life, she had yet to see little Tommy awake. A startling contrast to her own newborn, who had probably slept less than Tommy had been awake. "Izzy been cranky lately?"

B'Elanna rolled her eyes. "She's a quarter Klingon and all Paris. She enjoys being cranky."

"She's probably just growing," Nicki said, waving her hand dismissively.

"Of course she's growing," B'Elanna said with another roll of her eyes. "You and Jaxon both say that that's all she does and these first few years are just going to be one long growth spurt."

"You should know better than to listen to either of us. We make up half of the stuff we say."

"I figured that out already, thanks."

Nicki chuckled and checked on her sleeping baby while taking another sip of wine. "I like the hair, by the way." B'Elanna self-consciously touched her hair, the curls that recently brushed past her shoulders now straightened and in a bob.

"Now that Izzy isn't grabbing hair anymore, I thought it would make things easier," she said.

"And is it?" Nicki asked, amused.

"You guys should have told me how easy straight hair is a long time ago."

Both Nicki and Alicia laughed. "Everyone with straight hair wants curls," Alicia said. "And everyone with curly hair wants it straight."

B'Elanna shrugged. "It's easy enough to change."

Nicki laughed again. "I went through a phase when I was a teenager," she confided. "Never again."

"Those were some awkward years," Alicia agreed. "I thought I wanted kids with curly hair, but sometimes, nature should not be messed with."

"Thanks, Mom," Nicki said dryly.

Alicia smiled over at her daughter before turning back to B'Elanna. "I have three children, and who gets the curly hair? My son. Oh, and it was always such a mess whenever it got _any_ length to it. I made Owen buzz Tom's hair off at the beginning of every summer, because if he didn't, that boy looked like a Victorian street urchin after three days of summer vacation."

B'Elanna almost choked on her wine. "That was _you_?" she asked once she recovered. "Tom _hated_ those summer haircuts and would get so mad at Owen every time he _thought_ about them. He never thought _you_ were behind them."

Alicia gave a sly smile as she took a glass of wine. "I will never share my secrets," she teased. Nicki snorted.

"That's Dad's leadership style," she explained. "He doesn't pass the buck. Ever. Said he had a department chief who did that when he was an ensign—poisoned the section against the captain by blaming everything on the senior staff. It really killed the morale of the section, and, in a way, the whole ship." She shrugged. "One of Owen Paris' great life lessons: he who gives the orders, bears the responsibility of them. Anyway," she said, taking another sip of wine. "Pretty wild stuff about the Changeling on the Klingon High Council," she said. B'Elanna gave her an exasperated look as she took another drink of wine.

"I don't follow Federation politics," she said for what felt like the thousandth time. "What makes you think I follow Klingons any closer?"

"It was on all the comms channels!" Nicki exclaimed. Now that she said it, B'Elanna thought she remembered something from a few months before.

"Well, it didn't result in anyone from Starfleet Command asking me for assistance, so I don't know anything about it," she finally said, getting an exasperated look from Nicki and a chuckle from Alicia. "I work almost twelve hours a day and have an always growing toddler. That doesn't leave a lot of time for catching up on the news," B'Elanna reminded her.

"You really should pay better attention to your surroundings," Nicki said. "I just hope for your sake this whole bit with the Klingons boils over before you relinquish command. I don't care what Dad says. I know enough about Starfleet to know that if they see a round peg and a round-ish hole, they'll find a way to force it to fit. There are only one and a half Klingons in Starfleet uniforms, so I'm sure there's at least one admiral who thinks that we're wasting a third of our resources by not putting you in the fight."

"Don't I know it," B'Elanna muttered, then took another drink of wine. It seemed like no number of times explaining to Starfleet Command how little Klingons thought of mongrels—especially mongrels who were Federation citizens and Starfleet officers—would make any difference, because there was always someone else who thought they should send her somewhere closer to the Empire for one reason or another.

"Enough about that," Alicia interrupted, topping off everyone's wine glass to finish the bottle. "What are the plans for tomorrow?"

"Jason's staying home with Drew and Tommy," Nicki said promptly. "Ainsley wants to go to the service, so I'm signing her out of school. Christopher adamantly did not want to go, so he'll stay at school. I think Syd said Kajsa wants to go—they're getting here in the morning, with Dad—and Stephanie usually wants to do what Kajsa does, but she might be a bit young. We'll see. Jens is going to beam over to Denver with Alex and maybe Stephanie. Jason said they're more than willing to watch over Izzy if you'd like," she offered. B'Elanna nodded.

"I'll probably take you up on that." Izzy's attention span wouldn't last the hour and a half the service was scheduled to take. "I already told Sarah Carey that I'll bring her to the reception tomorrow night, so it would be nice if she gets some rest during the day."

Nicki snorted. "That girl doesn't rest, and even if she did, around her cousins is not the place to get it." B'Elanna had to agree with that. Trying to keep up with Stephanie and Drew usually got Izzy wound up, not calmed down.

Once the wine was done, Nicki and Tommy beamed back to their house, Alicia begged off to go to bed, and B'Elanna got back to the endless litany of reports and evaluations that seemed to make up the majority of her job, wondering for what had to be the thousandth time why she allowed them to make her think taking command was a good idea.

* * *

The Wylands and Owen arrived the next morning, and Sydney and B'Elanna promptly left to go for a run. "I'm sorry," Sydney said as they finished their third kilometer.

"For what?"

Sydney didn't say anything for several more meters. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you after Tom disappeared," she finally said. "I didn't know how to be, so I just… stayed away. That's why we stayed on the _Pathrind_ for parental leave."

Now it was B'Elanna's turn to be quiet for a few hundred meters. "To be honest, I didn't want people around," she finally said.

"I've always been competitive," Sydney said as if B'Elanna hadn't spoken. "I was eight when Tom was born. Nicki was six, and almost as soon as he was born, it was like he took her away from me. They were close in a way that I wasn't, and I had a hard time with that. And then, he died, and it really bothered me that I would never have a chance to be close to my brother. And I was really jealous of anyone who was closer to him than me. Which was…a lot of people. Especially you."

"I didn't want anyone's sympathy," B'Elanna said. "I still don't. And I'm certainly the wrong person to tell anyone else how they should be grieving. I didn't need you when I was in the hospital, or when I was living in San Francisco again against my will." They ran several more beats without speaking. "Running was my release, from when I learned how to run through the first two years of the Academy," B'Elanna continued. "Going for a run kept me from striking out at people. When I did refrain from striking out at people. Tom picked up on that pretty damn quick, making me go for a run when he thought I'd get in fights during plebe summer." Good thing, too, because it seemed like she always seconds away from smacking that smirk off Virot's face. And anyone who claimed that Vulcans didn't smirk was lying. "After my coma, it was my vengeance—against my body, against that damn snake, I don't know." She fell in love with Tom that summer over their daily runs, but she didn't say that to Sydney. "The thing about being depressed is that you know what you need to do to not be depressed—go to medical, go for a run—but you just don't have the motivation or energy to actually _do_ those things. After Izzy was born, it took everything I had to do the bare minimum needed to survive and keep Izzy alive. Getting out of bed, replicating food, going to all those damn medical appointments—doing each of those things seemed like an impossible task, and I just didn't have anything left for doing what I needed to do. Finally telling T'Pana that I needed help and needed to see Dr. Bayrote was the jump-start I needed, but I also needed someone to kick my ass and get me running again, to relearn how to be a functioning officer and learn how to be a functioning mother." They ran several more blocks before she concluded, "Tom was there when I needed him by being Tom. Nicki was there when I needed her by being Nicki. Don't apologize for being there when I needed you by being you."

Four hours later, inside a Starfleet assembly hall on a cold and raining February San Francisco day, they listened as the _Voyager_ crew was memorialized, recognized for their heroic actions on the ship's inaugural mission, and heard Lieutenant Thomas Eugene Paris declared dead.

Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres was officially a widow. At twenty-four-years-old. With a toddler.


	21. 2373

Stardate 50193  
February 2373  
San Francisco, Earth

The private reception for partners and children of the _Voyager_ crew was held at the Starfleet Conference Center, and B'Elanna Torres knew within three minutes of walking in that attending was a mistake. It was exactly the type of gathering she tried to avoid: too many people she didn't know, making small talk about topics she didn't care about, all while trying to keep Izzy from doing something Izzy shouldn't be doing. Which at nineteen months, was her specialty. At least Jason and Jens had gotten her to nap, which was a miracle in and of itself and might slightly reduce the risk of an all-out meltdown.

"B'Elanna!" She turned quickly at the sound of her name, her guard relaxing slightly when she saw Sarah Carey approach, her two sons, Sean and Patrick, following close behind. They were older than she remembered, obviously. Patrick, the younger boy, would be around five and looked exactly the way Sean, who now had to be around eight, had during those few months three years before. They still more strongly resembled their mother, but the red curls on their heads had come straight from their father. "I'm glad you could make it. And you must be Isela," she said smiling at Izzy, still resting on B'Elanna's hip.

"Hi," Izzy said cheerfully, displaying no signs of the stranger anxiety Nicki liked to warn about. B'Elanna was beginning to wonder if Izzy would just skip that stage entirely and was halfway convinced that Tom had done the same thing as a toddler. Unlike B'Elanna, who wasn't convinced she had ever grown out of that stage.

"Sean, Patrick, do you remember Lt. Torres from when we were staying on Mars?" Patrick looked uncertain, but Sean nodded.

"You were an ensign back then," he said. "Like my dad. But he got promoted."

B'Elanna smiled down at him. "I was," she confirmed. "And I also got promoted." He nodded at the obvious statement.

"Let me introduce you to some people," Sarah offered, heading off toward the nearest group to do just that. B'Elanna knew she had little choice but to follow.

An hour later, she was pretty sure she had met the significant others of all 153 crew members whose names had been read earlier that day, even though realistically she knew that she had only met 30 or so people. "Oh, there's Mark," Sarah said, brightening as she redirected B'Elanna toward a middle-aged man standing by the bar, talking to a man about the same age. Izzy had long ago been deposited with the other children; she was the youngest by far, but she was Tom's daughter—she never let a little thing like being smaller than others stop her from making new friends.

"Mark," Sarah greeted with a smile. He turned to them and matched her smile.

"Sarah," he said, greeting her with a hug. "It's been... several months, I think. How have you been?"

"Good days and bad," she replied. "I'd like to introduce you to B'Elanna Torres. Lt. Tom Paris' wife. B'Elanna, Mark Johnson. He was Captain Janeway's fiancé."

"The elusive wife of Lt. Paris," Johnson said with a smile. He extended his hand in greeting, which B'Elanna took. "I can use a refill from the bar. Does anyone need anything?"

"I'll take a cabernet sauvignon," B'Elanna said. She smiled, for the first time that evening not just out of politeness. It was her favorite wine, in part because every time she had it, she thought of Tom and the story about his bet with another cadet company commander her plebe summer. He had liked to joke that she owed her Starfleet career to his love of wine; she would reply that she deserved at least a little credit for being an unintentional wingman and securing his "date" for that last night of plebe summer.

She missed that man and their off-beat repartee. She was sure half of the people who heard them talk to each other were convinced they hated—or, at the very least, barely tolerated—each other, but it worked for them. She knew that his jokes were out of love, and hoped that he had known the same was true of her barbs.

Johnson returned with her wine and Sarah's beer. "My dog—well, Kathryn's dog—recently had another litter of puppies," he said, the non-sequitur making B'Elanna blink in confusion. "So if anyone is looking for a golden retriever puppy, please, please take one off my hands in about three weeks."

Sarah laughed. "We're still dealing with the fallout of what happened after the _last_ time you found yourself with an unexpected litter of puppies!" she exclaimed. "You do know that there's an easy solution to this problem, right?"

"It's a long story," he said with a laugh of his own. "B'Elanna?"

She snorted in surprised laughter. "Sorry," she said when she composed herself. "But I live on Mars with a hyperactive toddler. That kind of environment would be way too hard on a puppy. And by that, I mean Izzy. Maybe in a few years." Or not. She had a hard enough time keeping one small dependent creature alive; she didn't need to add another.

After a few more minutes of pleasantries, a tall woman about Johnson's age approached and put her hand on his arm. "Oh, there you are," he said with a wide smile. He turned to the other women. "Ladies, this is Carla, one of my friends from work and my emotional support at these things. Carla, Sarah Carey and B'Elanna Paris."

"Torres," she corrected through a strained smile as she shook the woman's hand. There was only reason that someone would be bringing "emotional support" to one of these things, and it was the exact reason she hadn't wanted to come in the first place. "Excuse me," she said to the group, forcing another smile. "I need to check on my daughter."

She did check on Izzy, who greeted her with a hug and a kiss on the cheek before returning to whatever game it was that she was playing with some of the other kids. She was somehow missing a shoe, but that happened frequently enough that B'Elanna didn't waste any time or energy wondering how that happened or where the shoe might be.

The balcony was, thankfully, both quiet and heated. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to practice some of those calming methods that Dr. Bayrote tried teaching her to no avail. When those didn't seem to do anything, she took a drink of wine instead.

She knew this would happen. She hadn't wanted to come to this event, a gathering of close family of those on _Voyager,_ because she didn't want to deal with this. With the spouses and partners who were moving on, were finding happiness with new partners.

She didn't know why that bothered her so much. _Voyager_ was gone, her crew dead; she had never concerned herself with what other people did in their free time, and it really didn't make any sense to get upset about what other widows and widowers and former partners did in their free time or who they leaned on in their grief.

Tom was dead. She knew that on an intellectual level, but no matter how many times she had told herself that over the last two years, it still didn't seem like it could be possible. How could it be fair, that after all the pain she went through in her childhood, the universe would give her someone who made it all seem like it could be okay, only to take him away right at the beginning of their life together?

She tried to take another sip of wine, only to find her glass empty. She sighed, leaning against the railing. It had turned into a clear evening, the Presidio spread out in front of her. In the distance, she could make out the lights of the Academy. She thought back on other February nights in that city: preparing for her promotion and move back to Mars the year before. Re-learning how to walk four years before. Running laps alone around the track long after everyone else had left practice the year before that.

Tom proposing to her in his family's hangar three years ago.

She turned away from the city lights at the sound of the doors opening and saw Sarah Carey stepping out on the balcony to join her. "I was concerned when you left so abruptly," Sarah said.

"I just needed some air," B'Elanna replied. Sarah joined her at the railing.

"I don't spend much time in San Francisco," Sarah said lightly. "It's a beautiful city."

"Sometimes, I think I spend too much time here," B'Elanna said. Sarah smiled slightly.

"Mark held out hope that _Voyager_ was still out there, somewhere, longer than most," Sarah said, as if that was what they were talking about. "All of us have our timelines of how long it took us to accept that it was gone and our loved ones with it. I think it was six months before the first time I thought the word 'dead' in connection to Joe." She paused for a long minute. "A ship disappearing is a horrible limbo to be in. It's easier when there's a body, easier to realize that your husband is never coming home, to go through the stages of grief, to know when it's time to allow yourself to 'move on.'" She paused again, her eyes still out on the darkened horizon. "I went on the first date after Joe died about a year ago. He was another teacher from school. We didn't go on another date, and I'm happy that we're still friends. I've been on a few other dates, but when you've had the love of your life, it's hard. I compare other men to him and find them wanting." She smiled sadly. "Joe was a mechanic assigned to McKinley Station when we met. I had already been teaching for a few years and was taking my students on a field trip to the Station. It wasn't one of those 'eyes meet across a crowded room' scenarios or anything. I just thought he was cute and when my students weren't looking, slipped him my comm frequencies." She smiled at the memory. "He commed as soon as he got off duty, four hours later, and we went out to dinner the next night. We had been dating for about four months before we started talking marriage, but he didn't want me to marry a man who didn't have a college education. That stubborn thought dragged on longer than it should have before he _finally_ applied for the Academy." When she laughed, her eyes shown with tears. "I convinced him that it would be okay for me to marry a cadet, because he was on his way to having a college education, and besides, we had already been living together for a few years by then. We got married in the courtyard of campus on Beta Ursae Minor II as soon as his plebe summer was over, and those were some great years. They say it's not easy to be married to an engineer, but I wouldn't trade our marriage for anything. I guess I was just social enough for the both of us."

B'Elanna smiled slightly. "I know that feeling," she said softly. Sarah turned to her and gave an understanding smile and a laugh.

"Oh, I know," she said, her eyes still shining with unshed tears. "I miss being married," she confessed. "I miss having someone who knows you that well. I miss sharing hopes and dreams for the future, for our sons. I even miss the arguments about whose turn it is to wake up with the baby. What I loved most about being married was being so secure in the knowledge that I had someone for the rest of my life, that we would be there for each other and grow old together. I still want that, and it took me a long time to admit that I want that when I can't have it with Joe."

"I miss Tom," B'Elanna said after a long stretch of silence. "He made me a better person. I was seventeen and angry at the universe when I entered the gates of the Academy, and it showed. I was self-destructive and always right and Kahless help anyone who was in my path." She still thought about that angry teenager at times and wondered what other paths her life could have taken. "I don't know why I even _applied_ for the Academy, much less decided to go. I had offers from better engineering schools, better track schools, but there I was. I think because it bothered my mother so much. Following rules and obeying orders were never things I was good at, but yet I found myself at a school where I would have to do both." She thought about the screaming matches, about the thrown punches. "I'm sure I was on a lot of administrator's short lists for cadets to kick out, but Tom taught me how to live within Starfleet's rules without getting consumed by them. If he hadn't been there…" She trailed off, sure how that story would have ended. "My parents never should have gotten married," she said abruptly. "I didn't know what a good marriage looked like. It wasn't something I thought about, and to be honest, I didn't think about being married to Tom until he asked. I didn't think about being married to anyone until he asked, and now that he's gone, I don't think about being married to anyone else. He was it for me. We had a good marriage and I love Izzy very much. I don't regret any part of our marriage except for how short it was. I just won't do it again."

Sarah smiled sadly. "You don't know that."

"No, Sarah," B'Elanna said, forcefully but not angrily. "I do."


	22. 2373

Stardate 50203  
March 2373  
Mars Station, Mars

Lt. B'Elanna Torres knew the biology; she knew that, even if she wanted the companionship that Sarah Carey had described, she would never have the attraction and love that make a relationship worth it again. Not with anyone other than Tom.

But in retrospect, she wondered if she was so adamant about it not happening because she was so damn clueless when men expressed interest.

She learned at an early age that the attention she got was not good attention. She grew up on a very human colony with a very Klingon mother and an absent human father, and either of those bits on Kessik IV gathered unwanted attention from gossipy men and women with not enough going on in their lives. Even though everyone on that planet knew of their existence, neither Miral nor B'Elanna could go anywhere without people stopping what they were doing to look at them, as if they were an oddity that must be closely examined, not neighbors who had been there for years. She had wished she could just disappear and that nobody could see her or stare at her.

When her male classmates hit their teenage years and began the long-standing tradition of teenage boys on seemingly every world and seemingly every time of researching everything they could find about girls, the attention B'Elanna got in school took a sudden and still unwelcomed change. She had known what the databases said about the sexual practices of Klingon women, and as an angry teenager with nothing and everything to prove, she indulged the curiosities of just enough of them to allow the rumors to flood her secondary school. It was enough to get the scorn of the last few girls who hadn't scorned her since elementary school and get the rest of the boys to stop trying.

Served them right, anyway. Teenaged B'Elanna had gotten immense satisfaction out of violently breaking bones of boys who pretended to develop a sudden caring for her after years of intermittent mocking and ignoring.

By the time she had arrived at the Academy, she was so accustomed to assuming that any attention was negative attention that she tried to avoid it altogether. She was fantastically bad at that, but it didn't stop her from trying. It had taken months of Tom going out of his way to help her fit into the Academy, to try to stop her from fighting, to try to help her pass the classes she couldn't care less about, to realize that he was in neither group of people she had encountered her whole life: he didn't view her as an oddity, and didn't view her as a sex object. He viewed her as a cadet who required more assistance than most, but most importantly, he viewed her as a person.

It wasn't until after he had blurted out that he had fallen in love with her did she even consider the possibility that he was speaking the truth, and that maybe she felt the same about him. He had been a constant presence in her life for months by then, helping her with her rehab, letting her vent about her frustrations, taking her sister on flying lessons and out for ice cream. But it took those words for her to examine his actions in retrospect and realize that he had been sending out pretty large and loud signals that she had completely overlooked, her entire being fine-tuned to filter out any signals from anyone else in attempts to shield herself from unwanted attention.

Lt. Commander Kwasi Amartey had been a project officer at the construction battalion for well over a year already when Torres arrived. He was quickly on his way to becoming Starfleet's leader in holoengineering; the holographic communicators that had recently hit all the ships and stations had been the thesis for his master's degree. He was objectively very handsome: tall, with symmetrical, well-sculpted features and smooth dark skin that made his eyes and teeth shine with his quick smiles. Torres didn't know where on Earth he grew up, but he had an accent with a rhythmic cadence that was almost soothing to listen to. He taught three classes at the Technical Services Academy, the school for enlisted mechanics-in-training: Holodeck Maintenance and Repair, EMH Maintenance, and, strangely enough, Shield Systems Maintenance and Repairs. Shield Repair was a required class for all to-be-mechanics, but his Holodeck and EMH courses always filled up as soon as they opened, and it didn't escape anyone's notice that those classes were disproportionally filled with women. It didn't matter what the man taught; women would line up to listen to him recite Starfleet engineering regulations line by line.

Torres' alarm went off at 1750, the same it did every day at 1750, ten minutes before the station day care closed for the evening. They would obviously stay to watch over any kids who still hadn't been picked up, but each delinquency earned the parents a demerit. Five demerits in a calendar year—an Earth calendar year, thankfully—and the parents would have to find alternative child care. It was a three-minute walk from the battalion offices to the day care. Less if she ran.

Her eyes moved from the chronometer to her monitor, where a repair report was almost completed. It should only take her another five minutes, which would still give her two minutes to spare.

She heard a door down the corridor slide open and closed and sighed, rising from her chair. The report would have to wait until the morning.

She stepped out into the corridor as Amartey approached. It was a familiar routine for the two of them: both had alarms set for 1750, both had a daily debate about finishing one last report or heading straight for the day care.

Both had one demerit already for the calendar year. In February.

"How was Earth?" Amartey asked as they exited the battalion headquarters and briskly walked toward the day care.

"Still standing," Torres replied.

"Good trip?"

She gave him a look. "It was for _Voyager_ 's memorial." She didn't talk about her personal life at work, yet it seemed everyone, including the mechanics under her command, knew about _Voyager_ and that her husband had been sitting in at the helm when it disappeared.

"Right. I'm sorry." He reached the door before her and held it open.

They both pressed their thumbs to the scanners to summon their daughters, and a few minutes later, both appeared in hand with one of the caretakers. "Cutting it close," she said warningly.

"But not late," Amartey said innocently, his smile charming.

Oye was about six months older than Izzy, and developmentally, they were currently at about the same stage. They got along as well as any toddlers did, in that they liked the same games but hadn't yet learned how to play them together. "Interested in dinner tonight?" Amartey asked as they exited the facility.

"No," Torres said. It was a frequent question and one she rarely agreed to, and only on those evenings when she didn't have more work to do and the weather was nice enough that they could eat outside at that restaurant by the park and the girls could play between the few bites of food either of them ate. She had told him the first time he asked—and several times since—that if he was looking for a relationship, he would have to look elsewhere, because she wasn't interested. And yet, he kept asking.

"You sure?"

"Yes," she said simply.

"Can I walk you two lovely ladies home?"

She frowned at him. "It's in the opposite direction," she pointed out. She didn't mention that she was planning on working on the shuttle for about an hour, or until Izzy got fussy.

"It's no trouble."

She rolled her eyes and turned and walked away. "I'll see you in the morning," she called over her shoulder.

The next day was Thursday, a fact that escaped Torres' notice until she saw two of her ensigns in hiking gear after lunch. "Hey, L-T," Ensign Brownlee greeted, sticking her head in the door. "We're about to head over to meet with the others. You ready? We're hiking today."

She bit back the urge to respond with, _does it look like I'm ready?_ while gesturing to the stacks of PADDs on her desk and the fact that she was still in uniform, and instead went with, "Just give me a few minutes to change."

She kept a few sets of exercise clothes in her office for this very reason. It wasn't the first time she had been caught unaware by a Thursday.

The battalion's officers beamed over to the hiking area in the shadow of Arsia Mons. The volcano itself made for some pretty boring hiking—it was just a long, continuous, low-grade slope to the caldera—but the old lava flows made for some interesting topography.

Commander Winters was big on esprit de corps and the battalion being one big happy family. He strictly prohibited discussion of work during the officer PT session, which didn't leave much for Torres to talk to her fellow officers about. She sometimes talked to Ensign Martin about running, as the young ensign in the maintenance company was also a marathoner, but she didn't have any other non-work-related hobbies. Even her side project of fixing up that S-class shuttle was too closely related to her job to qualify. The only other thing she had going on in her life was Izzy, and she found that non-parents were easily bored with tales of toddler antics.

That left her swapping stories of toddler antics with Amartey as they navigated the old lava field. "That is a great view," Amartey said as he stopped, his eyes out on the horizon and his chest heaving for air. Torres snorted.

"You just needed a break," she scoffed. He wheezed out a laugh.

"I'm not as young as I used to be," he confessed. "It is a nice view, though."

She chuckled and followed his gaze. "It's Mars," she replied. "More red rocks and more lava fields."

"Aww, Torres, where's your sense of romance?"

She scoffed again. "Nobody has ever accused me of having one of those," she pointed out.

Even when she examined the events with the critical eye of someone who had lived through them, she still had a hard time processing what happened next. He had grinned at her and leaned toward her, and she knew from that look that he was trying to kiss her. So, she did the only thing she could think to do.

She pushed him away. Hard.

She heard the crack of his ankle as he stumbled back awkwardly, and a split second later, his bark of pain. "Shit!" she exclaimed, grabbing at him before he tumbled down a rock face. "Torres to Winters," she said, slapping her combadge. "I think Amartey broke his ankle. I'm going to beam with him back to the clinic."

 _*Now my officers can't even_ walk _without breaking bones?*_ Winters complained. _*Keep me posted, Torres.*_

She tapped her combadge again. "Torres to Mars Station. Two to beam directly to the clinic."

The medics had escorted Amartey off to a treatment room, and Torres wandered off to replicate some raktijino. Twenty minutes later, one of them came back and said he had been treated and needed to stay off his leg for another hour, but could have visitors. She followed him back to the room where a sulking Amartey was still lying.

He waited until the medic left them alone. "What did you do that for?" he asked.

"Me?" she asked in response. "What did _you_ do _that_ for?"

"I was trying to kiss you!"

"I know!" she exclaimed. "That's why I pushed you!"

" _Why?_ "

"Because I didn't want you to kiss me!" He still looked at her as if he couldn't comprehend her thought process, and she sighed. "I have told you a thousand times that I'm not interested in a relationship," she said.

"Why not?"

"What difference does that make?" she demanded. "I said no. Why is that so hard for you to understand?"

"I thought…"

"You thought that because my husband died, I should just find the next eligible bachelor and go for it?" she asked. "You thought that if you kept pestering me, eventually I'll just cave and we'll live happily after ever?"

"I thought I was being charming."

"You weren't," she said flatly. "You were being annoying." She thought back to Tom, remembered those months between when she woke up from her coma and they started dating. He was always there, but he wasn't persistent. He put the ball solidly in her court, and waited to see if she was going to pick it up or not. He told her after they were married that those months were torture, to see her every day and spend those runs and meals together as friends and to not pressure her, but he had known that pressing her would have resulted in her running away.

He had respected her ability to make her own decisions from the beginning, and she would always love that about him.

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I appreciate that you're one of the few people in the battalion who knows what it's like to have our jobs and deal with being a single parent, but I don't want a relationship. With you or anyone else. If you can't respect me as a friend and stop trying for more, let me know now."

He studied her for a moment. "You'll let me know if you change your mind about a relationship?"

"I won't," she said flatly.

He considered that before nodding. "I'm sorry for how I've acted," he finally said. "I hope we can still be friends. And that you won't break my leg again."

She smiled despite herself and gave a slight nod. "I'll try not to," she promised.


	23. 2377

Stardate 54470.6  
October 2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager_  
Alpha Quadrant

"He sounds pleasant," Tom Paris said dryly, and to his surprise, she didn't laugh.

"Being a single parent is lonely," she said. "I've spent most of my life alone, but I wasn't _lonely_. It was different when Izzy was little. I was _never_ alone; I was either at work and surrounded by other engineers or mechanics, or I was at home and Izzy was there. I couldn't even go to the bathroom or take a shower without her following me or needing me. After she was out of her crib, I woke up to her in my bed more often than not, and that girl has _always_ been a restless sleeper. But it was lonely, and got so much worse after we moved back to Mars. At least on Earth, I had your parents and Nicki and Navi. John and T'Pana, on occasion. I even visited my cousin Elizabeth once every few months. I didn't have that on Mars. Some of our friends from before Izzy was born were still living on Mars Station, but they either didn't have kids and didn't understand why everything had to revolve around Izzy, or they did have kids but spent all of their time and energy complaining about their partners." She snorted. "I would have given anything to get to complain about how difficult you were making parenting," she informed him.

"Hey!" he protested. "I wouldn't make anything difficult."

She snorted again. "You'd keep Izzy up after her bedtime watching cartoons and would leave your pizza crusts on the table." He opened his mouth to protest again, then had to nod in concession. After all, he had done just that.

"But I would get to complain about how many hours you spent at work and abandoning us in the evenings to go running," he pointed out. "Or the fact that you don't like fun."

She arched her eyebrows challengingly. "I like to have fun," she said. "I just don't think holonovels are fun."

"You treat holodecks like training simulators." He actually said the same thing to Harry several years ago, when he was excitedly describing one of his holodeck programs and Harry had asked if Paris was just looking for a substitute for his wife. _B'Elanna doesn't do these programs with me,_ he had scoffed. _She treats holodecks like training simulators. Klingon martial arts, rock climbing, and Velocity games are the programs she runs._

"I just don't see the point in having to memorize parts in order to act out some fantasy. The real world is just fine."

"Says the woman who reads Klingon romance novels in her spare time."

She rolled her eyes, and he laughed. Even this bickering non-argument felt good; they had both changed over the last six and a half years, but it was nice to know that they were capable of having the same disagreements about how to spend their free time. "Not that I had time for holonovels, anyway. Not while working twelve hours a day and dealing with a toddler for the other twelve and a half. I had work, Izzy, and that S-class shuttle, and that was it. Kwasi seemed to be the only person who understood how isolating it is to be parenting alone and not even being on the same planet as the rest of your family. It was nice to get to talk to someone else who understood how lonely being a single parent could be. It was nice enough that I was willing to put up with his incessant requests for a date in order to have someone to relate to. He installed the hardware for a holo nanny—don't judge me, that thing is a much more attentive parent than any flesh and blood parent could be—" Tom held up his hands defensively; it didn't even cross his mind to think that a hologram couldn't be a good nanny, not after spending more than six years with an EMH as the ship's only medical provider "—and that was the only way I got to go on my long runs on the weekends, because he understood that it's hard to get alone time when dealing with a toddler. And he was a big help when I became a project officer and started grad school and teaching classes at the Technical Academy." She took a deep breath to redirect herself. "He finally got the message after that hike. Why it took a broken ankle and not just me telling him no is something I will never understand, but he was a good friend in those years."

"Where is he now?"

She shrugged. "He went to a holo engineer position at Jupiter Station a few months after Owen started Pathfinder and I moved back to Earth. We—Pathfinder—consulted his team after the datalink was established, to see if we could facilitate holographic communication with you, but _Voyager_ isn't equipped with the right holoemitters outside of Sickbay, and the files would have taken up too much bandwidth. The transmission times would have been so short that it would have defeated the purpose." She frowned slightly, studying his face. "Are you jealous?" she asked, her tone a mixture of confusion and hesitation, and he had to think about the question.

Jealous from a romantic point of view, no. He knew B'Elanna didn't care about pursuing romantic relationships—he had confessed his love for her twice before she had agreed to even date him, after all—and was too honorable to get in one when she couldn't give all of herself to it. He wasn't going to ask anything about sex, because everyone back in the Federation thought they were dead for almost four years, and sex and romance weren't the same thing. "I'm jealous of anyone who got to spend time with you and Izzy over the last six and a half years," he said honestly. "Including my parents and sisters. I'm jealous that I couldn't be the one you complained to about feeling isolated and lonely or the one to watch over Izzy while you went for a run."

"If you were there, there wouldn't have been any feelings of isolation or loneliness," she said dryly. "You would have dragged me to every party, holiday, and social gathering you could find. And then created new ones to drag me to."

He laughed and nodded his agreement, because he would have. And he would have been dragging her along. Until she started fighting back, which probably would have been after the first two weeks. "I could have gotten used to the quiet family life at home," he said thoughtfully. She snorted.

"For someone who accuses _me_ of getting restless, you sure do get bored easily," she pointed out.

"I have the holodeck for that," he said quickly, making her laugh and roll her eyes.

"How many new programs have you written in the last six and a half years?"

He tried to count, but couldn't. "A lot," he finally settled on. She chuckled. "But they weren't all for me," he said quickly. "I wrote a lot of programs for other people. Harry's played his clarinet in every major concert hall on Earth. And a few on Vulcan. And one on Ktaris, of all places."

She chuckled. "Forget the ship design division. Starfleet's going to be sending you to Jupiter Station for holoprogramming when we get home," she teased.

"I requested an assignment with the ship design division," he said. He wasn't planning on telling her this way, but couldn't think of anything better. She looked ready to laugh, and then changed her mind at the look on his face.

"You did?" she asked. "Why? I thought you'd be fighting to get back to being a test pilot."

He shook his head. "I've had enough living dangerously to last me a while," he said. "It's been a pretty rough six years. I need some time doing a job where I know that I'll be going home at the end of each day. I want to think of flying as something fun again, not something my life depends on. And being a test pilot took me away from you and made me miss the first six years of my daughter's life." She didn't say anything for a long minute. "I figured that since Pathfinder completed its job, you'd either be on the team tearing _Voyager_ apart and analyzing every component, or on a team working to make singularity travel a stable option, and both of those would probably be on Mars."

She nodded slowly. "You've really thought about this, then." It was a statement, not a question, and he nodded in agreement.

"I have," he replied. "The other idea was resigning my commission and following you around as a stay-at-home dad. It wouldn't take much to talk to me into that."

"With dabbling in holoprogramming on the side," B'Elanna said dryly, but with a smile.

"And coaching a junior flight team," he said.

"She also plays soccer," she pointed out. "And has been talking about wanting to learn Klingon martial arts. Navi wants her to start learning a musical instrument, but I'm afraid she's as tone deaf as I am."

"Sounds like there would be plenty to keep a stay-at-home dad busy," he said with a laugh. "How does she have time for all of that? How do _you_?"

"Izzy inherited her father's intolerance of sitting still and her mother's ability to function without sleep," B'Elanna replied. "And I leave shuttling her around to her various activities up to your mother."

"That would be significantly more difficult if we move back to Mars," he pointed out.

"True," she agreed.

He thought about that for a minute, then asked, "Do you want to move back to Mars?"

"I haven't had much time to think about it," she admitted. "My only focus for the last three years—aside from those brief interludes when Starfleet felt the need to remind me that I was an engineer in demand during a war—has been finding you and bringing you back home. I didn't stop to think about what would happen after that. I guess I probably have my pick of assignments to choose from. I don't really care where it is, though. All I care about is that you're there with us."

"I'm not leaving you again," he said. "Like I said, I will turn in my resignation before that happens. _That_ , I can promise you."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Thomas Eugene Paris, making a promise?" she asked in disbelief. "I didn't think I'd live to see the day."

"I'm serious, B'Elanna," he said, and he was.

"And so am I," she said. "I don't care where we go, we go there together."

"Just as long as it isn't anywhere in the Delta quadrant," he said. "I'm done eating anything with leola root." She frowned, and he shook his head. "Neelix is a great guy, but his cooking leaves a lot to be desired. And he uses far too much of that vegetable in everything."

"It can't be worse than rations."

He frowned and thought about that. "Let me put it this way," he finally said. "If the majority of your diet for over six years was rations…"

"I get your point," she said quickly. "That month I had them on the Jem'Hadar ship was bad enough."

"The Jem'Hadar was part of the Dominion, right?"

She chuckled. "Your whole crew is going to need a crash course in Alpha and Gamma quadrant relationships when we get back home. Yes, the Jem'Hadar were the military branch of the Dominion. And I have a master's degree in how their ships work."


	24. 2373

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my pet peeves about DS9 - and most shows in general, really - is that it makes everyone out to be the best [fill in the blank] there is. Dr. Bashir is the best, smartest doctor (but this was his first assignment after medical school and he didn't have any post-graduate training). Chief O'Brien is the best engineer out there (but he's a non-commissioned officer; an enlisted mechanic with no college education). Etc. Etc. So I'm watching the show, and they have this arc involving a Jem'Hadar ship that Captain Sisko had captured on a planet in the Gamma quadrant. We see it once in season 5, then not again until the beginning of season 6, where Admiral Ross tells Sisko that "they" were able to fix it up. And then after a group of unknown "they" spends almost a year fixing the ship, "they" just hand it over to the DS9 crew without explaining how anything works, and O'Brien and Nog figure everything out within 2 weeks.
> 
> Right.
> 
> I figured if there was one DS9 story that should involve a Repair Company commander on Utopia Planitia, it would probably be this one.

Stardate 50260  
March 2373  
Mars Station, Mars

 _*Winters to Torres.*_ Lt. B'Elanna Torres sighed at the interruption and tapped on her combadge.

"Torres here," she replied.

 _*Please report to my office.*_ Her eyebrows raised at his uncharacteristic brusqueness; he usually tried not to interfere with company operations, and scheduled meetings with the officers under him instead of summoning them to his office. Concerned with what could be going on, she put down her hyperspanner.

"On my way, sir," she replied. She crawled out from under the _Constellation_ 's warp core and glanced around. "Chief," she called out to Chief Kiyashko. "Finish this up for me."

"Yes, sir," Kiyashko replied, moving to take Torres' position.

Torres entered Commander Winters' outer office and raised her eyebrows in greeting to Petty Officer Yung. "He said to go right in, sir," Yung said in reply to Torres' unasked question.

To her surprise, Commander Winters was sitting at his conference table with two officers she didn't recognize. They both wore uniforms with gold turtlenecks, but that didn't tell Torres much; almost everyone on Mars Station wore gold. "Ah, Lt. Torres, thanks for coming," Winters said as she approached. "Please, have a seat. This is Captain Mehti and Lt. Glass from Starfleet Intelligence." She blinked in surprise; not at the fact that they were from Starfleet Intelligence—it was surprisingly ordinary to have intelligence officers hanging around the station, either with specifications of what a ship needed to be able to do or conducting one of their countless background checks on somebody—but at the fact that once he was introduced, Torres recognized Glass. He had been one of the cadet training officers her plebe year.

"It's been awhile," Glass greeted with a smile. She just nodded in reply, not in the mood to reminisce about plebe summer.

"We need you to sign this non-disclosure agreement before we continue," Captain Mehti said, sliding a PADD over to Torres. She took it and glanced at it before pressing her thumb where indicated. It was standard boiler-plate language; it was easier to just sign it than explain that any of the countless other, identical non-disclosure agreements she had signed in the few years of her career would undoubtedly cover what they were about to tell her.

Satisfied, Mehti placed the PADD in a case and stood. "It would be easier to show you this than explain it to you," he said. Her interest piqued, Torres rose and followed the others out of the office. Considering who they were with and the secrecy thus far, Torres wasn't surprised in the least that Winters had specified the classified dry dock when they got to the transporter room. He pressed his thumb to the authenticator, and Mehti, Glass, and Torres followed suit. The transporter chief gave a nod, and a few seconds later, they were on the viewing platform over the dry dock.

" _SoS,"_ Torres muttered in surprise. She had known this would be classified, but hadn't realized how classified. "That's a—"

"Jem'Hadar ship," Mehti finished for her, seeming pleased that he caught her by surprise. "Captain Sisko and his crew salvaged it from where it wrecked in the Gamma quadrant."

Her eyes were wide as she turned to face him. "Wrecked?" she echoed, having an idea of where she fit in this.

"We need you to fix it up and get it flying again," Mehti said with a nod. Her eyes still wide, Torres turned to Winters.

"I've told you that you're the best repair company commander in the Fleet," he said, smirking at having his claims proven right. "And you only have a few more weeks of command, and then this is your project. Full-time."

"But you have project officers," she said, unable to think of anything else.

"And in a few weeks, you'll be another one," he said. He nodded toward the Jem'Hadar ship on the other side of that space lock. "I'm sure you can fine a master's thesis in there somewhere."

"Master's..." her voice trailed off, trying to process all of this. Project officers were graduate students; they took classes, had thesis projects, and taught courses at the Technical Academy, and she hadn't realized she was on a path for any of that. "I thought..." She trailed off again, not sure what she had thought her next assignment would be. She had been so focused on all of the repairs her company had lined up that she hadn't given herself the luxury of figuring out her next assignment, which she now realized was foolish. She should have sat down with Winters to begin figuring that out months ago.

"You really are the best repair company commander in the Fleet," Mehti said. "There are twenty of you right now, and we vetted each. That's why we brought the ship here."

"But why do you even want a company commander?" Torres asked. "There are captains with more than 20 years of engineering experience."

"You mean 20 years of experience doing the same thing in the same way we've always done it," Winters said. "We're old and stuck in our ways. This project needs someone innovative, someone who thinks so far out of the box that we're not completely sure she believes there is a box. That's you, Torres."

"You have research experience, leadership experience, and your repairs are complex, complete, and fast," Mehti said, making her frown. She had never met the guy; who was he to say what her engineering was like? "We need complex, complete, and fast," he continued. "And we're only going to get that from someone young and innovative. You need to select a crew. Here's a list from your company who are cleared to this level of project." He handed her a PADD, which she took, still dumb from surprise.

She frowned as she studied the list, immediately categorizing everyone to their strengths and weaknesses, and shook her head. She assumed she would need a platoon-sized element, but it would be a generalized platoon; the current platoons were organized based on specialization: propulsion, defenses, electrical, and systems. "I need a weapons chief and an electrical chief," she said. The mechanics themselves, she could be more flexible with, but the chiefs and the junior officers had to have expertise.

"This is who's been cleared," Mehti countered. "The others have issues in their past or connections that prevented this level of clearance."

She raised her eyebrows, almost amused. "I'm half-Klingon," she reminded him.

"Fortunately, the Khitomer Accords are back in effect," he said dryly. "You've been thoroughly vetted because of your relationship to Admiral Paris."

"Of course," she muttered. She looked up at Winters.

"Give me a list of what you need," he said. "I'll shuffle battalion assets as necessary. This is our top priority."

"The sooner you can make this ship operational again, the sooner we can use it," Mehti pointed out, unnecessarily. Torres nodded.

"How is your progress in closing out your command duties?" Winters asked.

"I finished the evals for the chiefs," she said. "I still have to close them out for the officers. We have three disciplinary issues pending—"

"I'll move those to the attention of the battalion adjuvant," Winters interrupted. "Finish your evaluations of your officers as soon as you can. I'll shield you from other administrative tasks as much as possible until the change of command." She nodded; he really was taking this seriously as a top priority. "It's not unusual for project officers to delay teaching at the Technical Academy until their second term. If needed, I hope this will be done well before January when that requirement starts. You will have to enroll in at least one online course toward your Master's by four weeks after you officially start as a project officer. By then, you should know which classes will be most helpful in this project and can enroll in those. That's when your first draft of a thesis project proposal is due as well. We'll sit down and discuss all of this in more detail after your change of command."

She nodded, still trying to process all of this. "I think I got it, sir," she said. He smiled at her.

"I know you do, Torres."

She nodded slightly, her attention already focused on the ship below her and making a list of what she needed to do to get started. "Lt. Glass will go over the mission specifics with you," Captain Mehti said, already nodding toward Winters to go off and discuss whatever it was that senior officers discussed when no junior officers were around, but Torres frowned.

"Fix up the ship and make it able to fly again," she said. "I got it." She was itching to get to the ship and assess the damage. And to figure out what Jem'Hadar systems looked like. Everyone in the Alpha quadrant had taken influence from everyone else's technology; it wouldn't take her long to figure out the systems on a Klingon, Romulan, or Bajoran ship, but she had no idea what Gamma quadrant technology would look like.

"It's lunch time anyway," Glass said with a shrug. "I won't hold you up too long, I promise." She frowned again and looked longingly at the ship. An hour wouldn't make any difference, but it was still hard to nod her assent.

It was early enough that the mess at UP was still only sparsely populated. Glass and Torres replicated their meals and headed for a table against the windows in the corner. "I thought you were an engineering major," Torres said as they sat down. Glass snorted.

"I was," he confirmed. "I was a pretty mediocre engineer, though. Intelligence has been a good fit. Most intelligence officers are too focused on the big picture and don't know enough about the science to figure out how to make it happen, and most engineers are too focused on the details to pick up on the big picture. Ninety percent of my job is translating engineering reports into language intelligence officers can understand. Another nine percent is reigning in the imaginations of the intelligence officers when it comes to their ideas of what is and is not covered by the laws of physics."

"And the last one percent?"

He smirked. "Stoking egos," he replied. "I'm your liaison officer for this project."

"And they think my ego needs stoking?" she asked, her eyebrows raised. He snorted.

"Nobody thinks that," he assured her. "Most of that talent will be focused on calming the feathers you're undoubtedly going to be ruffling. Command wants this thing flying yesterday. You're going to tell them that they're being idiots every time they give you a ridiculous deadline, I'm going to have to assure them that they are not, in fact, idiots, and that they shouldn't reassign you in favor of the first uninspired lieutenant commander willing to tell them whatever they want to hear in favor of a promotion."

"That would make my life easier," Torres pointed out.

"Since when did you do anything the easy way?" he asked. "You almost struck your company commander on your first day at the Academy."

Despite herself, Torres couldn't help but smile. "He started it," she pointed out. "He accused me of being late on purpose." She could still remember that morning: checking in at the gate, crossing campus to where her company was standing in formation, a younger Glass crossing formation to intercept and pointing her in the direction of her company commander. Tom. Who had challenged her and grabbed her arm to make her stay when she called him on his bluff and moved to leave.

_You've made it this far. Might as well give it a few days before deciding it's not worth your time._

Glass' smile faded. "I'm sorry about Paris," he said. "It was a nice ceremony a few weeks ago."

"Starfleet loves a good show," Torres replied mildly. "When do they need the ship by?"

He shrugged. "As soon as possible. They have plans for it, but we don't know yet how extensive the damage is or how long it's going to take to figure out how to work Jem'Hadar systems. Those estimates are your first assignment. They're going to start bugging me for timelines in about a week."

She nodded. A week would be more than enough time for a repair estimate—if it was a Starfleet ship. She had never even seen a Jem'Hadar ship before, and there were no manuals for their repair in any Federation database. She rose from her seat. "Then I guess we better get started."


	25. 2373

Stardate 50485  
June 2373  
Mars Station, Mars

The months flew by so quickly that Lt. Torres barely registered relinquishing command of the Repair Company. Everything about her life was centered around that Jem'Hadar ship. The structural repairs were simple—hulls were hulls, regardless of who built them—but the systems themselves were a lot more complicated. Interesting, but complicated. And having Lt. Glass and Starfleet Intelligence hovering around made it all that more complicated.

She turned in her first repair estimates to Glass a few days before his deadline, projecting completion in eleven months, which seemed like a long time but really meant she had to buckle down and learn the technology. "Do we know what they're going to be using the ship for yet?" she asked Glass one evening as they walked toward the transporter room after a daily sync meeting.

"The specifics, or the generalities?"

She gave him a look. "I figure the generalities are, fly it," she said dryly. He smiled sheepishly at the obviousness of the response.

"Well, yes," he admitted. "As far as the specifics, we still have a long time to figure that out, and there are still a lot of people far above our rank trying to figure out what her first mission will be."

She rolled her eyes as the feminine pronoun of the ship. Most engineers and pilots tended to do that; she liked to tease Tom that he spent more time with his girlfriends than his wife. "I'm assuming that it would be good to figure out a way to communicate to Starfleet and Klingon ships that it's a friendly, without the Jem'Hadar hearing," she commented. He blinked in surprise.

"Uh, yeah," he said slowly. "That would be a good feature to have."

She rolled her eyes again. "I can see why you switched to Intelligence," she muttered. "Good night, Glass," she said as she turned in the direction of Izzy's daycare. "I'll see you in the morning."

As soon as she was officially a project officer, she enrolled in two courses toward her master's degree: Comparative Systems Engineering, and Advanced Communications Engineering. The former was a huge course—twelve credit hours—and unfortunately, was focused on comparing ships' systems of known cultures, but she hoped some of the principles would come in handy. The latter was in hopes of figuring out the answer to the question of how to communicate with friendlies without tipping off the foes. When she completed those, she enrolled in an upper-level physics course about polarons, and then another on antiprotons, and like all physics courses, they gave her a bit of a headache and made her glad to get back to the real engineering courses once she felt she had a better handle on the physics behind the weapons and sensors that had baffled and crippled Starfleet ships since the first contact with the Dominion.

The whole thing was a headache and a nightmare, and she'd by lying if she tried to deny that she was loving it. The hours were long, though, and her raktajino intake was creeping back up to where it had been when they trying to finalize _Voyager_ for launch. She had never been a morning person, and had rarely been one who preferred to run _before_ the sun was up, but on this project, her days typically started around 0600, when she would turn on the holo nanny to keep an eye on a sleeping Izzy as she went for a run, feeling the guilt of doing that with every step. Kwasi Amartey kept assuring her that the program was safe and included many more emergency, medical, entertainment, and educational functions than any person could have—in fact, a lot of the more remote bases and stations used them in their daycares—but she couldn't get over the feeling that it was cheating somehow, or that an actual person would be more reliable in case anything happened to her daughter.

She returned from her run to wake up Izzy, get them both cleaned up, dressed, and fed, and then walked her daughter to daycare before returning to the Jem'Hadar ship for another full day of trying to figure out how it was supposed to work and how to get it back to working. The first hour was usually spent with Glass, getting the updates from Intelligence and trying to fill in what he needed for his reports, until she got so frustrated with his questions that she sent him to the dry dock's office and she checked in with her officers and chiefs. The bulk of the work day was spent trying to apply what she was learning in her graduate courses to the ship, and then there was a daily sync at 1700, which gave everyone enough time to discuss their updates and challenges before Torres ended the meeting at 1745 in order to pick up Izzy from daycare.

She got two to three hours with Izzy before putting her to bed and putting in several more hours of coursework and reviewing diagnostic reports and calculations before finally making herself go to bed around 0300. At first, it had been difficult to switch from project lead-mode to parent-mode for those few hours that she dedicated to Izzy, somehow much more difficult than it had been to switch from company commander to parent at the end of her workdays before the Jem'Hadar ship arrived in her life. She had to stop herself from treating her toddler as one of her engineers, but once she got the hang of it, those were her favorite and most relaxing hours of the day, even more so than her early morning runs. She wondered what it would have been like if Izzy had been a few years older, if she and Tom had had to care for a child while finishing the _Voyager_ project. Somehow, she doubted it would have been as beneficial, enjoyable, or relaxing. They would have fought over whose turn it was to watch over Izzy and who could stay late at work. They had both been busy in those last few months, but she much more so than him; she was sure she would have been the one staying at work at least 90% of the time, getting progressively more and more cranky about missing out on time with her family, which would undoubtedly result in her twisting it into Tom's fault in her head and lashing out at him.

It had been almost two years since she had become a single parent, and for the first time, she found a positive aspect of it: not having someone to parent with meant that she got all of the _good_ parts of parenting, in addition to all the bad ones.

She fell in love with Tom because she liked who she was more when he was around than when he wasn't; she fell in love with Izzy for the same reason. Being Izzy's mother had made her a better person. She was infinitely more patient now than she had been before she had learned how to deal with a toddler and somewhat better at making herself relax. And Izzy, like her father, spent most of her time being up-beat and happy. It was hard to be upset when around a smiling toddler.

Being Izzy's mother had also made her a better officer, or, at least, a more understanding one when one of her engineers requested time off or needed a break from the grueling schedule. They worked long hours from Monday through Friday—with the exception of Thursday afternoons, which were still reserved for allowing the chiefs and NCOs train the junior mechanics—and would come in on Saturday mornings, but the times she asked anyone to come in on a Sunday were rare. She herself also tried to keep Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings for time with just her and Izzy. Sometimes they spent that time on that S-class shuttle she felt a little bit guilty about abandoning, but most of the time, they were outside. Izzy loved "hiking," even though her idea of hiking was skipping around on one of the short nature trails around the Station while wearing her tiny and adorable hiking boots instead of her usual shoes. Tiny and adorable hiking boots that were a pain in the ass to put on her small feet, of course, but Izzy would get so exciting about "hiking" that B'Elanna continued to do it.

She had a moment of reflection on the Mars-Earth shuttle in June as she simultaneously tried to entertain Izzy and review the results of the last warp core diagnostic about how different she had become since _Voyager_ had been lost. There was the obvious—she now had a soon-to-be-two-year-old, after all—but the more subtle things as well. She had been so opposed to missing any opportunity to work before Izzy was born that she didn't even want to take the shuttle back to Earth to see Dr. Gault after they discovered her pregnancy. Now, she was taking a few days of leave just to run a marathon in Madagascar with her sister-in-law.

She was beginning to understand what the words "work-life balance" meant, even if her current version of "balance" looked like a teeter-totter with a Naussican on one end and a toddler on the other.

Her hours spent on the ship and her coursework were hours that she hadn't spent training for the marathon, and it showed in her performance. Sydney, who preferred to run in the cold, was similarly ill-prepared for the African heat, and neither managed to cross the finish line before the three-hour mark. "Thank the gods I'm going to have more time to train for next year," Sydney remarked after several minutes of trying to catch her breath, turning her head to look over at her sister-in-law from where they were both lying in the grass after their painful finish. "I'm moving back to San Francisco with the kids before the new school year starts," she explained. B'Elanna blinked in surprise; was Sydney leaving Jens? The man was boring, but he was a good husband and father. "I'm getting promoted," she continued, not giving her sister-in-law an opportunity to ask any questions. "And Jens is moving over to the _Taurus._ It's definitely not large enough to have a commander as the chief of security. Dad suggested the command track, but it's not as if Jens and I can both be first officers on the same ship. And, don't tell Dad, but I'm _really_ not interested in commanding a ship someday." She rolled back over onto her back and sighed. "I'm going to be Admiral Huang's adjuvant at Starfleet Operations."

"Congratulations," B'Elanna said.

"Thanks. So, we're doing Norway next year," B'Elanna groaned in response.

"I would say I'm done with this nonsense, but I know you won't accept that," she said. "Norway's far too cold."

"Turnabout is fair play," Sydney pointed out. "You know I hate running in the heat. Besides, Jens' parents are always bugging us to visit Tromsø more. It _is_ a nice city. And you'll be done with the 'new drive' by then." They had taken to calling the Jem'Hadar ship the 'new drive' to avoid unintentional mention of the classified project. She groaned as she pulled herself to a seated position. "C'mon," she said. "Let's go meet up with the others and see some lemurs. Some good needs to come out of this stupid trip to Madagascar."


	26. 2373

Stardate 50894  
December 2373  
Mars Station, Mars

Lt. B'Elanna Torres had entered the Starfleet Technical Academy and was on her way toward the Salvage course she taught at 1000 when she was intercepted by Chief Kiyashko. "I'm teaching your class today, sir," the petite repair chief announced.

"Really?" Torres asked with a frown. She pulled out her PADD, but couldn't find any notation that she wasn't teaching that morning. "Why?"

"I think that's above my paygrade, sir," Kiyashko replied. "I was just told that you're needed elsewhere and that I needed to fill in."

"Well, okay," Torres said slowly. She didn't know what was going on, but had a feeling that the pieces would fall into place shortly. "We're on chapter 17."

Kiyashko pulled out her own PADD and found the relevant chapter. "Warp core salvage," she said, sounding pleased. "That's my favorite."

"Mine, too," Torres admitted. "Whatever they have me doing instead better be good." As if on cue, her PADD chirped with an incoming message. It was encrypted, which was not surprising; almost all of her messages had been encrypted since she started working on the Jem'Hadar ship. Once she pressed her thumb to decrypt, the message hardly became any clearer: _1000 meeting at CBHQ._

Commander Winters had a tendency to be succinct, but this was ridiculous.

She bid Chief Kiyashko luck with the lecture and hurried over to the headquarters building for the Construction Battalion, heading toward the flurry of activity around the conference room. "Aren't you supposed to be teaching a class?" she asked Lt. Commander Amartey as she slid into a seat next to him.

"Aren't you?" he asked in reply.

"Any idea what this is about?" Lt. Commander Jordan Anderssen, another project officer, asked. The line of project officers in their usual chairs along the back of the room shook their heads in unison.

Commander Winters entered a minute later, followed by Lt. Glass and two other officers who had that vague Starfleet Intelligence look about them, and the assembled officers all rose. "As you were," he said, waving them back to their seats. Without preamble, he continued, "A few hours ago, a Borg Cube destroyed the colony on Ivor Prime." There was a collective sharp inhalation, but the officers were disciplined enough not to murmur amongst themselves. "It appears to be headed for Sector 001."

"Toward us?" one of the ensigns blurted out.

"Pretty sure it's actually aiming for Earth," Lt. Kos, the maintenance company commander, said dryly. Winters shot them both a warning glance.

"As of now, we're in combat mode," Winters continued as if the interruption hadn't happened. "Repair is the top priority. Lt. Gonzalez, as such, you're on point." Torres' replacement as the Repair Company commander nodded solemnly. Torres knew he was up for the responsibility; she was a better engineer, but he was a better commander. "Projects are on hold. Lt. Torres, you and your crew will now be a platoon under Repair. Try not to take the demotion personally." She smiled slightly and the room as a whole gave a much-needed chuckle. "Anderssen, Sei, Polley, same for you. Amartey, since you don't have a crew—" He cut himself off and looked up with a frown. "You haven't had a crew in a while. Why are you still here?"

"Must be my charming wit," Amartey said with a smile.

"That must be it," Winters said dryly. "You're coordinating the efforts with the Tech Academy. Make sure we don't put in any student mechanics who are going to break things."

"That's a pretty tall order," Amartey said.

Winters acknowledged that with a quiet snort. "Jmin, we're getting a shipment of third and fourth year engineering cadets from the Academy. Same orders for you as Amartey—make sure they don't break anything."

"Baby officers and baby mechanics," Lt. Commander Jmin mused. "This isn't combat mode, this is babysitting."

"Have you tried babysitting?" Torres asked. "It's pretty much being in a constant state of combat mode."

"Speaking of babysitting," Amartey said, turning back to Commander Winters, "what are we doing about childcare?"

"Childcare?" Winters asked with a frown.

"We're in combat mode," Amartey pointed out, "which will mean long hours. Torres, Kos, and I are single parents. Rolof, Smith, and Pasman have kids and their partners are out in the 'Fleet. McCullough and Gupta—"

"I get it, Amartey," Winters interrupted. "A lot of officers in this room have kids. Even more of our mechanics and chiefs have kids. A lot of people take station assignments for family reasons. Myself included. What is your point?"

"If we're working on repairs at all hours, who will be watching our kids?"

Winters frowned, and then turned to his adjuvant. "Semich, give me three courses of action for childcare within the hour. And no, one of the courses of action cannot be 'leave the kids alone at home, unsupervised.'" He turned back to the group. "Commanders, you have an hour to get me a list of all of your people with childcare needs and a count of all children 17 and under who may need childcare." He glanced around. "Anything else?"

"I hope I don't need to remind anyone in this room, but everything we've discussed this morning is classified," one of the unnamed Intelligence officers said. "No discussions with anyone. Including family."

"Most of us have family on Earth," an ensign said in disbelief. "You want us to just sit here and leave them unaware of a _Borg_ threat?"

"What's the alternative, Ensign?" the Intelligence officer asked. "Evacuating nine billion people from Earth? World-wide panic?"

Torres felt sick to her stomachs at the realization, and saw from the expressions of her colleagues that they felt the same way. "I'm not happy about it, either," Commander Winters said after a long minute, "but Commander Estes is right. We can't risk word of this getting out and starting a panic. No word of this gets out. Understood?"

A murmuring of "aye, sirs," was given by the assembled officers, and then Winters dismissed them to begin their preparations. Torres went straight to rarely-used office, typically preferring to work in the dry dock office or directly on the Jem'Hadar ship, but the Jem'Hadar ship had already been locked down while the project was on hold.

"Computer," she said. "Open encrypted comm-link to Commander Sydney Wyland."

Sydney must have been sitting at her desk, because the comm immediately connected. _*So you've gotten the news,*_ she said as a greeting.

"Is this a credible threat?" B'Elanna asked.

 _*As credible as it gets,*_ Sydney said, a sharp edge to her voice that hid a tinge of fear. _*All of this time spent learning Dominion tactics, and now we have to go back to the goddamn Borg. Good news is, it'll be over one or way or the other real quick.*_

B'Elanna knew that that was a Paris thing, to resort to sarcasm when they got scared or frustrated. Tom did it far too often, Nicki was a regular offender, and if things weren't so serious, B'Elanna would tease Sydney about being more like her siblings than any of them liked to admit. "What are we going to do?"

_*I'm guessing you're going to be repairing ships. I'm going to be studying tactical reports and making plans that'll go out the window as soon as the first shot is fired.*_

"Thanks, that cleared things up." Fair was fair; she could be sarcastic, too. "What about Izzy?"

Sydney finally looked up from the PADD she had been studying. _*What do you mean?*_

"Where's the safest place for her?"

 _*On Mars,*_ Sydney said automatically. _*You keep her there on Mars.*_ She looked down, then around, as if making sure no one was listening. _*Mom and all of the kids are getting on a transport in two minutes. She's rented one of the vacation houses, and if anyone asks, she's just taking the grandkids to visit their aunt and cousin on Mars.*_

"Just Alicia and the kids?" B'Elanna asked. "What about—"

 _*I'm going to be here, trying to direct traffic,*_ Sydney interrupted. _*Dad is going to be doing whatever it is that admirals do when there's an eminent attack. Nicki's a Starfleet physician. She's going to be preparing for casualties. And Jason joined a civilian disaster medical response team so he could be with her.*_ She paused slightly before adding, _*And the_ Taurus _is heading to the front lines.*_

B'Elanna had forgotten about Jens, because Jens was fairly forgettable, but with those words, everything clicked into place. Space was dangerous. Sydney had lost her brother to it and had probably lost several classmates, former crewmates, friends. They got reminders every day of just how dangerous it was, and now they were facing an enemy that they knew to be brutally ruthless. If they made it through this without losing anyone else, it would be a minor miracle. Sydney had broken the rules for her mother, kids, and niece and nephews because she was worried about her husband. She couldn't control her husband—actually, as the adjuvant for the Chief of Starfleet Operations, she could have, but she never would—but she could control the civilians she loved, and get them as far away from the projected conflict as possible. It was only one planet over, but it was the best she could do.

 _*Kajsa and Ainsley are old enough to help with the little ones,*_ Sydney pointed out, continuing as if she hadn't mentioned her husband's ship. _*Mom will comm you when they get to the house so you can drop off Izzy.*_

The words almost took B'Elanna's breath away, even though she knew she should have expected them, especially after Kwasi's question at the staff meeting. She would be too busy to take care of Izzy. She knew she should count herself as fortunate—she had her mother-in-law and nieces to take care of her daughter, when most of her colleagues didn't yet know what they would do with theirs—but even with all the work she had on the Jem'Hadar ship and her coursework and teaching at the Tech Academy, she had always made time for Izzy.

 _*I need to get to a meeting,*_ Sydney said abruptly. _*Comm me when you get a chance. Good luck.*_ She signed off before B'Elanna could wish her the same.

The hardest part about being responsible for repairs was that the job didn't start until everyone else's was finished, which left the thousand or so members of the Construction Battalion watching the conflict on Starfleet frequency 1486, which was playing on every available monitor and screen. "Shit," someone breathed. Nobody else was able to speak, or pull their eyes away from the monitors.

The front line was shattered in minutes. The cube had broken through and resumed its course toward Earth. A few ships were doggedly pursuing, firing when they could, and none of them could tell if the cube had been affected at all.

They saw with their own eyes just how much damage there was, but they still had a few hours before any of the ships would arrive at Utopia Planitia. B'Elanna took the time to head over to the vacation houses. She read Izzy a story, kissed her goodnight, and reminded her to be good for her grandmother and to listen to Ainsley and Kajsa.

She found Alicia outside, sitting apart from where Ainsley, Kajsa, and Stephanie were giggling around a firepit. She wanted to tell Alicia what she had seen of the attack and how swift and brutal it had been, but knew that that would help no one. "They have no idea what's going on," Alicia said quietly. "I told them it was just a surprise trip to Mars with Grandma. I'm surprised Ainsley hasn't figured it out. Maybe Kajsa and Stephanie are distracting her from the fact that we've never done this before."

"Thank you for watching Izzy," B'Elanna said. Alicia waved dismissively.

"You know I would never turn down a chance to see my granddaughter." B'Elanna knew that Alicia meant that about all of her granddaughters—and her grandsons—but she also knew that Izzy meant more, or maybe just something different, than they did. Because she was all that Alicia had left of her only son. "Sometimes I really hate Starfleet," she continued, so quietly B'Elanna wasn't sure she had heard her. She turned to her mother-in-law to see tears shining in her eyes. "I would never tell her, but I was so relieved when Nicki didn't want to go the Academy. I thought, thank the gods, at least nothing will happen to this one. Sydney was always Owen's, and Tom was so unpredictable that none of us knew what he would do until he did it, but at least Nicki would be safe. And then in the course of six months, I lose my son and the one daughter I thought was safe decides to go and join Starfleet. That broke my heart, B'Elanna. It will never heal after losing Tom, not all the way, but every time I see Nicki in that uniform, it's like another tiny stab to my heart. I can't lose another one of them. One of you. I won't survive."

B'Elanna wished she knew how to tell Alicia that she would survive, because she was one of the strongest women she knew, because every time she fell apart, she was able to pick herself back up and put herself back together, even as the rest of the world appeared to go on without missing a beat. She wished she could tell her that they would be okay, that Owen, Sydney, Nicki, Jens, and Jason would all be okay, that the _Taurus_ was intact and its first officer unharmed, that someone, somehow, would be able to stop that Borg cube before it got to Earth, that Alicia would be able to take seven of her grandchildren with her back to Earth and would see the eighth in a few weeks when they got together for Christmas. But she didn't. She gave Alicia a hug, wished her a good night, and promised to comm when she got a break in her repair schedule. And then she got to work.


	27. 2377

Stardate 54471  
October 2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager_  
Alpha Quadrant

Lt. Tom Paris was having a nightmare about Borgs and Species 8472 and attacks on Earth and seeing his friends assimilated, until he was abruptly awoken by the sound of a thud from the living area of his quarters. He sat up with a start, his breath caught in his throat.

"Izzy fell off the couch," B'Elanna murmured next to him. "She's fine."

Sure enough, a few seconds later, a small voice called out from the other side of the divider, "I'm okay!"

"Computer, time," B'Elanna requested, still sounding more asleep than awake.

 _*The time is 0617,*_ the computer replied. She groaned and rolled over.

"Get her breakfast," she said, and then it was his turn to groan. He should have figured this would happen; B'Elanna didn't need much sleep, but she still hated getting out of bed. He supposed breakfast duty was now officially part of his job description.

"What does she eat?" he asked as he pulled back the covers and got up.

"Whatever she wants to, usually," B'Elanna replied. He had no idea if that response was more reflective of Izzy being as strong-willed as her mother, or B'Elanna's inability to form a coherent argument before her second or third cup of coffee.

He groaned again as he rose and grabbed his robe and slipped it on. He was still rubbing his eyes when he padded out into the living area to see Izzy appearing wide awake, trying to access something on his computer console. "Do you have vids on here?" Izzy asked, as if her poking around on his computer console was perfectly normal.

"What kind of vids?" he asked as he made his way toward the kitchen. "I'm going to make peanut butter toast. Do you want some?"

"I dunno. Flying vids? And what's that?"

"What's what? I'll pull up some flying vids in a minute."

"Peanut butter toast. What kind of flying vids?"

"Whatever kind of flying vids you want to see. And you're in for a treat." He pulled out the toaster, and then realized he didn't have any bread. He replicated a loaf and a mug of coffee for himself. He was about to ask Izzy if she wanted one, too, but then remembered that six-year-olds didn't drink coffee.

Izzy watched his movements curiously. "Why don't you just replicate toasted bread?" she finally asked. "It's faster."

"But it's not as good," he said with a grin.

"How is it different?" she asked with a frown. He laughed.

"No, you're not your mother's daughter," he teased. She frowned again.

"Yes I am," she protested.

"I was joking, Izzy," he said. He handed over a plate of two pieces of toast, thickly covered in peanut butter. "Here you go."

"Can I have a hot chocolate, too?" she asked, still studying the toast skeptically. "Do I like this?"

"You'll have to try it to find out," he said. "Marshmallows in your hot chocolate?"

"I can have marshmallows?" she asked excitedly. He chuckled.

"One hot chocolate, with marshmallows," he ordered into the replicator. Izzy was almost bouncing with excitement as she reached for the mug. "Eat your toast before it gets cold," he said. She frowned again as she studied the toast in front of her.

"Can I have waffles instead?"

"Just try the toast!" He sighed. "If you don't like it, I'll replicate some waffles."

Izzy seemed to accept that compromise and picked up a piece of toast. "Can you show me the flying vids?" she asked before taking a bite. He sighed at the sight of the uneaten toast and wondered why he ever thought that any kid of Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres would ever be easy to handle.

He heard a combadge chirp on the other side of the divider, followed by B'Elanna's murmured voice. He heard her get up and head for the sonic shower. "I like peanut butter!" Izzy exclaimed excitedly. Tom just sighed again.

A few minutes later, he had Izzy contentedly eating toast while watching vids of show squadron routines when B'Elanna appeared, fastening her uniform top. She headed straight for the replicator. "Raktajino, hot," she ordered. "The diagnostic finished," she reported after taking her first drink of coffee. "Izzy, I need to borrow the console to check on the diagnostic results."

"But I'm watching flying vids!" Izzy protested.

"And you'll be watching vids again in a few minutes," B'Elanna replied. Izzy looked very displeased, but reluctantly got up from the console.

"Do you want anything for breakfast?" Tom asked as she began studying the diagnostic results.

"No, thanks," she replied, already sounding distracted. Izzy was already bored and began running around the quarters. "Calm down, Izzy," B'Elanna said, her eyes not leaving the console. "These quarters aren't big enough for you to be running around. You're going to break something."

"You heard your mother," Tom said, lunging after his daughter. "No running around!" She exploded in laughter as she dodged him, and he lunged again, bumping into the table and knocking over B'Elanna's raktajino.

"Tom!" she exclaimed, trying to clean up the mess. "Can you at least _try_ to act like an adult? I did not spend the last three years of my life working to get _Voyager_ back so I could raise two children!"

He couldn't help but laugh and gave her a kiss. She didn't appear amused. "We'll be good. I'll ask Captain Janeway if we can take the _Flyer_ out again."

"I'm going to need your help after lunch," B'Elanna said. "The navigational controls need recalibration before we can get moving again."

He knew it wasn't fair to his crewmates, but he was no longer in a hurry to get home. He wanted to see his mother and sisters again, sure, but everything he had cared about for the last six years had already happened: he had B'Elanna and Izzy. He would be content spending the rest of his years at that position in Federation space, on _Voyager_ , as long as he had them by his side.

But he knew that wasn't going to happen and knew that they—at least, he, B'Elanna, and his father—were Starfleet officers and had a mission to complete, and that they were going to complete it. So he promised to see B'Elanna for lunch, gave her another kiss, and then headed for the shuttlebay with Izzy.

They went through the same pre-flight checks as the day before, and then Izzy requested permission to launch before Tom actually flew them out of the shuttlebay. As before, he transferred over controls once they were clear of the ship. "Why did you and Mom get married?" Izzy asked after a few minutes of trying out some new techniques that Tom taught her.

Surprised by the question, he said the first thing that popped into his mind: "Because we love each other."

She seemed to think about that for a few seconds. "Do you have to marry people you love?"

"You don't ever have to do anything," he replied automatically. "Well, except for things your mother and I tell you to do," he amended a second later. "Up to a point." He had to stop and get his thoughts in order, trying to figure out how to be a parent when he still hadn't figured out how to be a son. He had hated people telling him what to do, even his parents, especially his father. "We'll figure that out as we go," he promised. "But no. You don't have to marry someone just because you love them. But you definitely should be in love before you marry someone."

She considered that for a long minute. "Navi and Ainsley have boyfriends," she finally said. "Navi says she doesn't love him and she's only dating him because it annoys Grandpa John." He had to bite back a snort of laughter at that. "Ainsley says her boyfriend's fun enough for now. What does that mean?"

"I think you're still a little young for that explanation," he said, trying not to laugh and definitely comparing his niece to Nicki when she the same age. Their bedrooms were right next to each other; he had asked her when he was eight or nine why she opened her window some nights. By the time he was ten, he had figured out that she was using the giant tree next to her window to sneak out in the middle of the night and sneak back in before the sun was up.

"Kajsa says that boyfriends are a distraction and that she's not going to get married until she's over 30," Izzy continued. "She said she has to focus on getting in the Academy right now."

This time, he did laugh. "Your cousins are just like their mothers," he said. Izzy tilted her head to the side, but kept her eyes on the controls.

"What do you mean?"

"Your aunt Sydney also said she wasn't going to get married until she was 30," he explained. Izzy frowned.

"But she married Uncle Jens when she was 22."

"That's because life never works out the way it's planned. And Kajsa might meet someone in her first month at the Academy and get married as soon as she graduates, just like Sydney did. And Ainsley might say she's just having fun and then end up bringing a surprise husband home for Christmas when she's 20, like Nicki did." He shrugged. "Or they might do their own thing. It's up to them."

She thought about that for a minute. "When did you think you'd get married?"

He laughed. "When your mom agreed to marry me," he replied. She frowned at that response.

"I don't have a boyfriend," she informed him. "I asked Patrick if he wanted to be my boyfriend, but he said he really wants to focus on his schoolwork right now."

Now it was Tom's turn to frown. "Patrick Carey?" he asked. "Isn't he nine?"

"Nine and a half," she corrected.

"Isn't that a bit old for you?"

She shrugged. "Doesn't matter," she replied lightly. "Because he's not my boyfriend."

"Right," Tom said, nodding as if any part of this conversation made sense. "Because he's focusing on his schoolwork."

They stayed out for two hours before Chakotay asked them to come back in, and then Izzy immediately ran off to play with Naomi. Tom found his father sitting alone at a table in the mess hall, studying something on a PADD. It was still too early for lunch, and Tom was still hoping that B'Elanna would take a break to join him, so he replicated a raktajino and sat across from his father. "How are Izzy's flying lessons?" Owen asked without looking up.

"She asks a lot of questions," Tom replied. Owen chuckled.

"Wonder where she gets that from," he commented dryly. Tom had to chuckle in acknowledgement. He had probably been pretty obnoxious when he was Izzy's age.

"B'Elanna told me about the Borg attack on Earth," Tom commented, and Owen finally looked up.

"Wasn't much of an attack," he finally said, returning his eyes to his PADD. "The _Enterprise_ stopped them before they got to Earth."

Tom snorted. "You don't need to give me the Starfleet party line, Dad," he said. "Seven told us about it. I know about the time travel and what really happened with first contact and everything."

Owen sighed. "That's not important. Not really. The Borg... The Borg will always be something else."

"No kidding," Tom murmured. For a long minute, father and son sat in silence, both thinking of different engagements, different conflicts in different quadrants, against the same horrible enemy.

"It was a rough time," Owen finally said. "It was... pretty scary, for the whole family. We hadn't had that kind of threat against Earth before. We were all fine. The _Taurus_ had some damage and Jens got a concussion, but no lasting damage."

"How could you tell?" Tom asked dryly. "Not as if it would affect his personality."

"Be nice," Owen admonished, but Tom saw the tuggings of a smile on his face. "Those were a pretty rough few years. In the grand scheme of things, the Borg threat—attack—whatever it was—was barely a blip on the radar. It was a scary few days, but nothing like what happened with the Jem'Hadar. Did B'Elanna tell you about her ship?"

"The one she fixed up?" He had figured the story wasn't finished; she had said something about eating rations for a month and was sure the two were related.

Owen nodded, then shook his head. "She didn't just fix up that ship, Tom," he said. "She risked her life for it. I know I'm biased, but B'Elanna is one of the best engineers—and one of the best officers—to come out of Starfleet, but that being said, and even though I've given my entire adult life to Starfleet, I'll never forgive the organization for the fact that they made her do that."


	28. 2374

Stardate 51012  
January 2374  
Mars Station, Mars

January brought Lt. B'Elanna Torres the best birthday present she could have asked for: the last of the diagnostics revealed that they had completed their repairs to the Jem'Hadar ship and it was ready for its first mission. Starfleet Intelligence was quite pleased at the news and the fact that it was ahead of schedule, despite the three weeks the project had been on hold while its crew was assigned to cleaning up after the Borg attack.

She chose to celebrate her own birthday and the clear diagnostics from the test flight by taking the afternoon off and granting the same to her crew. They had certainly worked hard enough over the last ten months to deserve it, which is why she was annoyed when they interrupted their free time less than an hour after she granted it. _*Bamber to Torres,*_ Chief Bamber commed right after Torres had signed Izzy out of daycare.

"I'm off, Bamber," she reminded the electrical systems chief. "And so are you."

_*I know, sir, and I'm sorry to bother you, but there's something here that you should probably see.*_

She sighed. "You're going to have to be more specific, Chief," she said. "I already picked Izzy up from daycare."

_*It's hard to explain, sir, but shouldn't take too long to show. Just bring Izzy up.*_

"I can't just bring my toddler to a classified docking," Torres said dryly. "For one, she hasn't been read in yet."

She heard Bamber chuckle over the comm line. _*What kind of damage do they think a two-year-old is going to do?*_

"You've met my two-year-old," Torres reminded him. She sighed. "We'll be right up, but if this takes longer than ten minutes, it's going to have to wait until tomorrow." It was a nice day out, and she was going to enjoy an afternoon off with her daughter, because she hadn't had enough of those lately.

As expected, the presence of the toddler got a frown from the security ensign at the transporter station, until Torres pointed out that Izzy was two and couldn't even read yet, which would make her a pretty poor Dominion spy. As soon she stepped onto the ship, she regretted answering Bamber's comm. "Happy birthday!" the officers, chiefs, and mechanics greeted as she stepped onto the ship. She could only sigh and shake her head, and wonder how they had managed to trick her.

"Ben-lee!" Izzy shrieked excitedly, pulling away from her mother and toward Crewman Brynnlyleigh Pagano.

"You break it, you buy it," Torres warned Pagano as she handed off the toddler. The young crewman smiled over at her before grinning down at the toddler. Pagano was one of Torres' best mechanics; only 19, and she rarely found a broken piece of machinery she couldn't fix. Torres kept encouraging her to apply to the Academy and become an officer, but Pagano was currently focused on finding a man and having kids, and seemed to think going to school would be a distraction from that goal. Torres wanted to tell her that she was young and there was plenty of time for all of that, but since she had gotten married at 21 and had a baby at 22, she figured she didn't have much room to talk.

Ensign Strzelcyzk had produced a cake from somewhere—not the ship itself, as the stupid thing didn't even have replicators, despite their best efforts—and Torres sighed again. "You guys are going to get cake crumbs and frosting all over the bridge," she said.

"Well, yes," Strzelcyzk admitted. "But we have the mechanics to clean it up for us." She had a point, and Torres begrudgedly allowed for the celebration.

After how hard they had all worked over the last ten months, they all needed a celebration. Even if it was just for her birthday.

"So how old are you now, Lieutenant?" Bamber asked with a grin.

"Still old enough to be your project lead, Bamber," she reminded the chief, who was probably the same age as her father.

Twenty-five. She was a twenty-five-year-old widow with a two-year-old daughter, more than half of a master's degree in systems engineering, a dedicated crew of thirty officers, chiefs, and mechanics, and a Jem'Hadar warship that she was about to turn over to Starfleet Intelligence for missions that were outside of her need-to-know.

The next day found her back on the bridge of that warship, seated on the floor because the Jem'Hadar and Vorta apparently didn't believe in chairs, her attention focused on the PADD in her hands. "Another round of diagnostics?" Lt. Glass asked as he took a seat next to her. She chuckled and handed it off to him.

"Not quite," she said. "Tom's niece is a budding holophotographer. She sent me some pictures for my birthday, from our trip to Madagascar seven months ago." _Happy birthday! I'd thought you like some holos of your monkey playing with the not-monkeys,_ Ainsley Sanders had written. Even at thirteen, Ainsley had had an eye for holophotography, and had perfectly captured the wonder and joy on Izzy's face as she had held a lemur, but what really got B'Elanna was how different Izzy looked. It had been seven months since that trip to Madagascar; the not-yet-two-year-old in the holos looked so much younger than the two-and-a-half-year-old whom she had dropped off at daycare a few hours before, and it had all been so gradual that she hadn't even noticed her daughter growing up. She wasn't one to romanticize the newborn and infant stages, but couldn't help but feel a little sad that the little girl in those holos was gone. The next thing she knew, Izzy would be an angry teenager sneaking out of the house and flying shuttles into lakes.

"You're really good with kids," he said as he handed the PADD back.

She snorted. "I'm _sometimes_ good with _one_ kid. Because I have to be." She looked around the bridge. "I spent more time fixing up this ship and figuring out how it works than I spent growing an entire person. It's hard to say good-bye to your children."

He chuckled at the comparison. "Well, you don't have to say good-bye just yet," he said. "You're going with it."

She snorted. "Right," she said sarcastically. "We'll just put Izzy in the bunk next to mine. That should work."

To her surprise, he didn't laugh. "I'm actually serious," he said, handing her the PADD he had been carrying. Her eyes widened with alarm and a little anger as she read it. "The crew from the _Defiant_ is going to be taking her out on its first mission. Their chief engineer is a chief. You spent ten months learning how this ship works. How do you think a chief, a cadet, and a handful of mechanics are going to be able to learn the systems in a couple of weeks without someone to teach them?"

She stared at him for a long minute. "In case you've forgotten in the last two minutes, I have a toddler," she said, her words slow and measured. "Where is she supposed to go? It's not as if her father's here to watch her while I go gallivanting about Dominion space!"

"How do you know it's going to Dominion space?"

"It's a Dominion ship, Glass," she snapped. "I'm not an idiot. Don't change the subject. If it's an officer you're looking for, I'm sure Strzelcyzk or Rox can go."

He snorted. "And if our only concerns were the weapons or communications systems, that would be a great idea. But we need someone who understands everything about that ship." She glared at him for a long minute. "It wasn't my idea, but I do think it's the best one," he continued. "Nobody knows this ship better than you, and we need you for this mission to work. I know it's less than ideal, but I also know that you and Izzy have a lot of family on Earth who can watch her for a few weeks."

"I'm a single parent _because_ of a 'few week' mission!"

"It will be really good for your career."

"I don't give a damn about my career!" she exclaimed. "The _only_ thing I care about is my daughter, and I am the _only_ parent she has left. I will _give up_ my career and resign my commission before anyone makes me leave her!"

"We're a Federation at war," he replied quietly. "I hope you know that I'm not exaggerating when I say that this mission will most likely fail without you, and we really need this mission to succeed. This could turn the tide for the Alpha quadrant." It was his turn to stare for a minute before he continued, his voice still low. "Let's say you resign your commission. What do you think will happen if we let the Dominion get close to Earth? Do you think you and Izzy would be safe here?"

She narrowed her eyes angrily. "This was the plan all along, wasn't it?" she asked. "You never intended me to just… repair this ship and turn it over to a crew, did you? You _always_ planned on me going on this mission." She gave a short laugh as she stood up and angrily began pacing. "I can't believe I didn't figure it out sooner!"

He watched her pacing, but didn't rise from his seat on the floor. "Captain Mehti wasn't sure anybody would be able to make this ship fly again," he said. "I told him that if you said you could do it, you would, but we had to make sure that you assumed we only needed you to fix it up."

"So you intentionally lied to me," she said flatly.

"Misled you," he corrected. "And yes." She glared at him again, so angry that she had to fight to keep her hand from curling into a fist. Angry at him, but also angry at herself, for not seeing what he was doing, for letting herself believe that she knew him because of their brief interactions as cadets years ago and letting herself believe that that shared history meant he cared about anything in her life. "I'm not going to apologize, Torres. This ship is our best opportunity to hit the Dominion where it hurts. That mission the _Defiant_ crew is taking her on? It's to take out the ketracel-white facility in Cardassian space. With the minefield across the wormhole, they can't resupply, and no ketracel-white means—"

"No Jem'Hadar," she snapped. "I'm not an idiot, Glass."

"No, you're not," he agreed. "Which means you know how important this mission is in protecting the Federation and the entire quadrant. And Izzy."

"You do _not_ get to use my daughter to force my hand." He didn't say anything, just continued to allow her to pace around the bridge while she thought about it, and she was sure that he knew the exact second she had changed her mind.

"Fine," she snapped. "One mission. Just to show the new crew how the damn thing works, and then I'm right back here, and you leave me alone." He nodded in agreement, which she didn't quite believe. "I need a few days to go to Earth to get everything settled with Izzy."


	29. 2374

Stardate 51019  
January 2374  
San Francisco, Earth

Knowing how much Starfleet loved bureaucracy, Lt. Torres shouldn't have been surprised at the amount of paperwork it took before a planet-based officer who was a single parent could go on a combat mission, but really, it would have been easier on everyone involved if they had just let resign her commission and return to Mars.

A few hours after the last PADD was stamped, B'Elanna was back at the Paris' house, staring out into the dark on the other side of the living room window without seeing, a glass of Owen's whiskey in hand. "This is a stupidly dangerous mission."

She took another sip of whiskey instead of turning to face Nicki. "You chose to stay on Earth when a Borg cube was heading your way," she pointed out. "And your civilian husband stayed with you."

"I'm a physician," Nicki replied. "So is Jason. It's our job to—"

"Doctors don't have a monopoly on risking personal safety for the good of others."

"You will literally be on an enemy ship, crossing enemy lines—"

"Nicki," B'Elanna interrupted, finally facing her sister-in-law. "Stop." She didn't know how or why, but things had been different in the family since the Borg threat, even though nothing had happened. Earth had been unharmed. B'Elanna had been busy with repairs, but the whole thing had bypassed Mars as if nobody had cared about it. A lot of ships had been destroyed and a lot of lives lost, but nobody connected to the Paris family had been counted in those numbers. The _Taurus_ had been dinged, but easily repaired. She had seen to it herself, as a favor to Jens, who had gotten so emotional when she said the repairs were complete that the normally stoic Norwegian had given her a hug. She was concerned enough about that that she almost had Nicki check to make sure he wasn't experiencing residual effects from the concussion.

And yet, things were different in ways that B'Elanna couldn't define.

Nicki sighed and massaged her temples. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just…" She frowned. "I lost my brother," she said, her words now coming out in a rush, "and I can't lose you, too. And I'm so worried, because it sounds so similar to the mission they sent Tom on, and—"

"Nicki," B'Elanna interrupted again. "I need you to do me a favor. I have every intention of coming back from this mission, but if I don't, I need you and Jason to take care of Izzy."

Nicki blinked in surprise. "Us?" she asked. "But… why?"

"Because you're the most like Tom," B'Elanna said, "and that's what Izzy needs. Besides," she said with a shrug. "You come with a built-in babysitter, your parents won't have the energy in another decade to take care of a part-Klingon teenager, John would probably end up walking away in a few years, and Syd is far too high-strung and is already parenting solo."

Nicki finally started to smile. "So, we're the top out of a collection of lousy choices," she summarized.

"Pretty much," B'Elanna agreed with a smile of her own.

"In that case, you really better come back," Nicki said. "We already have four kids of our own, and I'm a little afraid Izzy would just get lost in the shuffle."

B'Elanna snorted. "I doubt it would be possible to lose Izzy in any sort of shuffle. She has a terrifyingly effective way to get your attention."

Nicki laughed and surprised B'Elanna by wrapping her in a tight hug. "Just… come back, okay?"

"That's the plan," B'Elanna repeated.

Nicki released her and quickly wiped at her eyes. "Now that we've gotten that out of the way," she said, "I sent your medical records to Dr. Bashir on the _Defiant_."

B'Elanna looked at her, aghast. " _Why?_ "

"Because he's the doctor?"

"I don't need people knowing my business!"

"He's a doctor!" Nicki said, exasperated. "We are one of the few professions that _actually do_ need to know your business."

"It doesn't take an entire medical history to figure out that if I'm bleeding, you should stop the bleeding. It's not that hard!"

"Hybridology is _complicated_ medicine. You almost died because people didn't respect that!"

"There aren't going to be any snakes on the ship!"

Nicki threw up her hands in exasperation. "It's more than just snake venom and neurotransmitters, B'Elanna! Your physiology—"

"Stop worrying about me!"

"Somebody has to!"

"I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself!"

"Obviously not," Nicki scoffed, "or you wouldn't be going on this stupid mission!"

"We already _had_ that fight!" B'Elanna stopped herself and gave a short laugh. "You really are just like your brother. You even fight like him."

Nicki snorted. "Who do you think taught him?" she scoffed. She softened. "I'm sorry," she said. "I get argumentative when I worry. Like Tom. I'm pretty sure we both got it from Dad."

"I really don't care where you get it from," B'Elanna said. "It's bad when he does it. It's a lot worse when you do."

"Worse?" Nicki asked with a frown. "Why would it be worse?" B'Elanna smirked at her, crossed her arms, and raised her eyebrows. Nicki looked confused for a long minute, then her eyes widened in realization and her hands flew up as if on their own accord, hovering about her head as if they couldn't decide if they should be covering her eyes or her ears. "Aaah!" she exclaimed. "I did _not_ to think about that!" B'Elanna smirked again and refrained from pointing out that Izzy's existence was proof that Nicki's brother had had sex.

"Good night, Nicki," B'Elanna said forcefully. Nicki gave a slight smile in defeat and gave her sister-in-law another hug before leaving the Paris house.

B'Elanna finished the whiskey and recycled the glass before heading to Owen's study. "You finally ran her out of the house," Owen commented without looking up from his console.

"She's almost as pushy as Tom," B'Elanna commented, her eyes scanning his holos. She smiled at one of the pictures of her and Izzy at the lemur preserve that Ainsley had taken and removed it from the shelf. "This is my favorite picture of her," she commented.

Owen looked up and smiled. "It's my favorite picture of both of you," he said. Her eyes traveled from where they always rested, on Izzy's face, full of excitement and wonder and joy as she had held a very tame and patient lemur, and over to her own image, and remembered how she felt when it was taken. She had been seated because she hardly had the energy to stand, exhausted from that terrible marathon that she hadn't been properly trained for, her legs cramping and her head aching, but you couldn't tell that from the holo. Her eyes had been on Izzy and she had been smiling at her daughter's excitement at getting to hold a lemur.

"It's amazing how things can look in a snapshot in time," she mused. "Here, it looks like I actually know how to be a parent."

Owen chuckled. "None of us know how to be a parent," he commented. "We are all making it up as we go." He paused, then added, "Tom would be impressed with how good of a mother you are."

"Tom always thought I'd be a good mother," B'Elanna replied as she replaced the holo. "Even when I didn't. And I knew he'd be a good father. Even when he wasn't sure."

"I wish you had gotten the chance to prove it to him."

"So do I."

He looked wistful, the way he always did when thinking about Tom, and a few seconds later, gave her an apologetic smile and changed the subject. "When are you leaving?"

"Eleven-hundred," B'Elanna replied promptly. "I'm going to take Izzy out for breakfast and then to the bay. She likes the water and never sees it on Mars." She frowned. "I don't know how she's going to do tomorrow night," she said apologetically. "We've never had a night apart since she was born. Not even when Alicia was watching her on Mars in December. I tried explaining that she's staying with Grandma and Grandpa and I'm not, but I don't think she understood."

"Don't worry about Izzy," Owen said. "We have plenty of practice from Syd and Nicki dropping their kids off. And we're planning on spoiling her rotten."

"Great," B'Elanna said dryly. "That'll be fun to come home to."

The next morning, B'Elanna and Izzy headed out to get breakfast, because Izzy enjoyed eating breakfast at restaurants, even though she always asked for the same thing her mother could replicate for her—a waffle with maple syrup—and always ended up making a huge mess, because toddlers and maple syrup did not mix. And then they went down to the bay, where B'Elanna chased Izzy and tickled her, and Izzy chased her mother and tried to tickle her, before she got distracted and decided to chase the waves. Unsuccessfully, which ended with the small girl falling in the water as a wave hit her and soaked her from head to toe. She didn't seem to mind, the air erupting in delighted peals of laughter.

It was a good morning, with the dark cloud of the next month hanging over B'Elanna, and she couldn't help but wonder what Nicki and Jason would tell Izzy of her parents if she didn't make it back. Would they talk about Tom's flying? How excited he was that a baby was coming? How would they explain to her just how much her mother loved her and needed her? How would they answer the questions when Izzy started asking why her forehead was different than theirs, why her hair was dark and curly and everyone else's was blond and straight?

She caught Izzy and tossed her in the air, earning more shrieks of laughter, before she brought her still-wet child to her hip. "I love you, monkey," she said, kissing Izzy on the top of her head.

"Love you, Mommy," Izzy replied, wrapping her arms tightly around her mother's neck.

She felt her throat tighten and swallowed hard against it. "I need to go do work really far away," she said, trying to explain for what had to be the tenth time what was going on. "You're going to get to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for a month. Isn't that going to be fun?"

Izzy nodded eagerly, her response whenever someone said the word 'fun.' "Was dat?" she asked.

"A month?" B'Elanna asked, getting another nod from Izzy. "That's about thirty good mornings," B'Elanna said. Izzy's eyes went wide; thirty was a big number in her world. "But you're going to have so much fun, you won't even notice I'm gone," B'Elanna said quickly. "What're you going to do with Grandma and Grandpa while I'm gone?"

"The zoo!" Izzy said excitedly. B'Elanna had no idea where Izzy's recent fascination with zoos had come from; she hadn't even realized that Izzy knew what a zoo was. "An' monkeys!"

"You're going to see monkeys?" B'Elanna asked with a laugh. "But you're a monkey!"

"No!" Izzy exclaimed, then giggled. "Wama!"

"You're a llama?" Izzy giggled again, nodding vigorously. "I think you're silly."

"You siwy!" Izzy insisted between giggles.

B'Elanna had no idea where she had gotten such a joyful child, but she figured it would be best to keep her, and gave her another kiss on the top of her head.

Two hours later, she was in a fresh uniform, the salt and sand removed from her hair and skin. "I'll comm before she goes to bed, whenever I can," B'Elanna promised to Owen as they headed toward the transporter station.

"Izzy's going to be fine," he assured her. "I promise." They had left her with Alicia, nobody wanting to deal with the fallout when Izzy realized that her mother was transporting somewhere without her. It was better to distract her and get a few hours in without her realizing her mother was gone. "All you need to worry about is keeping yourself safe."

B'Elanna nodded. "I'll see you in about a month," she said.

She wanted to say more; she wanted to promise that she would be back, that she would stay safe, that she would watch her daughter grow up, but Tom's words about promises were always there in the back of her mind. He didn't make promises, because Owen made them too easily, and broke them just as easily whenever Starfleet asked him to. So instead, B'Elanna made herself a promise as she gave the transporter operator the coordinates of the ship overhead:

_I'm not going to stand here and promise you that I will stand by you forever and will be by your side as long as you live, because I don't know if I can. But I am going to promise you that I will always try my hardest to do just that._

Tom's words to her on her wedding day, and now, her silent words to their daughter as she headed toward an enemy ship, to take her into enemy space.


	30. 2374

Stardate 51027  
January 2374  
En route to Starbase 375  
Federation Space

Lt. B'Elanna Torres exhaled as she shifted her weight from her right foot to her left, her arms following. She closed her eyes, trying to get in the rhythm of the motion and trying to clear her mind from everything but the motions of the _mok'bara_.

So accustomed to multi-tasking, it took a lot to focus on only one thing. And she didn't care what Dr. Bayrote claimed, it didn't make her mind any clearer.

She opened her eyes at the sound of the door sliding open, trying not to let the distraction disturb the motions of the Klingon martial art. "Oh, sorry, sir," Ensign Strzelcyzk said, stepping about half a meter into the small room before stopping. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

Torres sighed, but didn't stop. "What do you need?" she asked.

"What're you doing?"

Torres rolled her eyes but refrained from pointing out that that didn't answer her question. " _Mok'bara_ ," she replied. "It's a Klingon martial art." She needed to do something to get her body moving, and it wasn't as if there was any room on the ship to go for a run. Klingon bodies didn't do well in cramped quarters; the last thing she needed was for her legs to start cramping up, which they had a tendency to do if she went too long without moving around. It had always been a problem, but had gotten worse after her coma. Commander Mileham, her physical therapist, had her start doing _mok'bara_ during her recovery; he and Dr. Zalun believed that the motions would help stimulate the connections between her nerves and muscles. She's not sure if the _mok'bara_ accelerated her recovery or not, but she tried to stick with it. Especially when there were no other options. "Did you come in here for a reason, or just to ask questions?" She was short with her officers, but didn't care. They expected her to get down to the point; considering they were all engineers, she was sure they appreciated the lack of small talk.

"Oh!" Strzelcyzk said, as if having forgotten that she just entered the room a few minutes before. "Chief Bamber asked me to ask you if you were ready for our sync meeting."

Torres sighed and finally stopped her exercises. She got almost forty minutes in; that was a new record in the few days since they had boarded the Jem'Hadar ship and began their trip toward Starbase 375, where they would meet up with the _Defiant_ 's crew. "Let's do it," she said with another sigh. She was in her tank top, shorts, and training flats, but they weren't exactly being formal on this trip.

She had brought her whole team on the mission, even though she knew most would be staying on 375 while the ship itself headed into Cardassian space. For her ensigns and most of her junior mechanics, it was their first space mission, but more importantly than giving them time in space, she needed them to help train the _Defiant_ 's crew on the operation of the ship. The junior mechanics were practicing their training on each other, and on the short walk from the room they had turned into an all-purpose room—gathering space, exercise room, mess hall minus replicators, which Torres swore she would someday figure out how to make compatible with the ship's systems—toward the bridge, they passed three pairs of mechanics conducting said training sessions, and another two pairs on the bridge itself.

"Take off for the night," Torres said to them.

"Yes, Captain," the four mechanics said in unison. Torres gave Chief Bamber a dark look, and he smirked in reply. It was he who suggested to the mechanics that until Captain Sisko came on board, she was in command of the ship and therefore should be addressed as 'Captain.' She didn't quite agree with that; she was no longer in a command position back at UP, and the captain of the _Elkins_ , one of the two Starfleet ships escorting them to Starbase 375, had command and control of the mission.

The lieutenant, two ensigns, and three chiefs gathered in the front of the room, around Lt. Jedha, the R&D test pilot at the helm station. "ETA?" Torres asked Jedha.

"Two and a half more days to 375," he replied. "Still on schedule."

"Glad to hear it," she said. "Strzelcyzk?"

"Weapons systems still clear on diagnostics," the ensign replied. Torres nodded.

"Rox?"

"Communication systems are functioning at 100%," the other ensign said. "We received confirmation from the _Elkins_ that they are receiving our friendly signal."

"Always nice to have a field test. Chiefs?"

"Warp core is functioning perfectly," Kiyashko said.

"All auxiliary systems are at 100%," Xsto added.

"Crew morale is high," Bamber said. "The kids are working through their training plans."

"Stop calling them kids," Torres said automatically, the same response she gave every time he did it. Which was probably why he did it. "Anything else?" They all shook their heads to the negative. Torres nodded. "Get some rest while we can," she said. "We have two and a half days until we're at 375, and then we'll be spending the next two weeks trying to teach the _Defiant_ crew everything we spent ten months learning. We're going to have some long days." They nodded their understanding. "Have a good night."

The five filed out, leaving Torres still standing by the helm station with Jedha. "Ten months and you couldn't even figure out how to install a chair," he commented once they were alone on the bridge. She gave a snort.

"Bridge officers," she scoffed. "The rest of us spend our duty days on our feet and we don't give you shit about it. You pilots are too soft."

Lt. Jedha laughed. "I guess I should be thanking you for the nice mat to keep my feet from getting too tired," he joked. "But seriously. Chair or no chair. This ship is a dream to fly." She smiled at that and the unspoken compliment. "Good thing I didn't have to fight Tom over who got to fly it. I would have lost."

She smiled again, this time sadly. Lt. Jedha and his husband had moved to Mars a week after Tom and B'Elanna returned from their honeymoon; they were their first married couple friends after becoming a married couple, had become two of their closest friends on the station in the short time before _Voyager_ disappeared. She or Tom or both would meet up with at least one of them for lunch or dinner or drinks or coffee or one of Tom's holoprograms more days than not. It had been almost two years since her return to Mars, and she felt guilty that she hadn't really reconnected with them in that time. Tom had been the sociable one in their relationship; she knew that, and she was pretty sure all of their friends knew that, too. "He would have had to stay home with Izzy," she pointed out. "But I would have given him the first flight once it was space-worthy again."

"Fair enough," he acknowledged. "How is Izzy?"

"She's a holy terror," Torres said with a smile. "I would feel sorry for my in-laws, but I miss her too much for that. I think Alicia must have taken her to the aquarium, because when I commed her this afternoon, she insisted that she's a penguin now."

Jedha laughed. "I love that age," he said. "Massika was about that age when we adopted the girls. She was such a ham. It was a different animal each day, and she really got into it. Noises and diet and everything. She always has been a bit of a method actor."

Torres smiled, thinking of the youngest Jedha-Jin daughter. Massika was ten now, and Torres felt that pang of guilt again at the fact that she could count the number of times she had seen the girl since she got back on one hand. "How's Azadeh?" she asked. Their elder daughter had been older when their biological parents were killed on their colony near the Cardassian border and had had problems dealing with their deaths and adjusting to adoption and moving to Earth, and then Mars.

"She's doing really well," Jedha said, a mixture of pride and astonishment in his voice. She remembered their concerns about her attitude, her school performance, her lack of friends. "She was seeing a counselor every week for a couple of years. She's down to once a month now. Still shy, but she has a group of friends she's really close with. She's talking about volunteering at the daycare and thinks she might want to be a teacher when she grows up. Qiao hasn't stopped gloating over that one." Qiao Jin was a history teacher at the Federation School on Mars Station; he taught Mars History, Federation History, and Human History, and served as an adviser for any student who wanted to do an independent study on any other history-related topic. He and Tom had that history thing in common, and more than once, Jedha or B'Elanna had cut them off from their arguments over who were the best actors or musicians or something of the twentieth century. Jedha sighed. "Aza's starting to get into genealogy and wants to learn about her people and her culture, and I have no idea how to answer those questions."

"I worry about that when Izzy gets old enough to realize she doesn't look like everyone else," Torres admitted. "I'm not exactly well-versed on Klingon history and culture."

"At least you know where to start," he replied. "I was born and raised on starships and Qiao grew up on the Moon. I have no idea what _my_ cultural history is, and Qiao's never even been to China. How are two people who don't know their own people supposed to help a teenager find out about hers? I don't even know what part of Earth their ancestors are from, much less when they left or why."

"Fortunately, you're going through this years before I have to, so when you figure that out, let me know."

"Ha," he said dryly. He checked the chronometer. "I have about another hour here before I beam back to the _Elkins_ for some rest. Sure you don't want to come and sleep in some real quarters?"

"I'm sure," she replied. The captain of the _Elkins_ had offered her team guest quarters, but they opted to stay on the ship in case anything unexpected happened. There were only three actual quarters on the Jem'Hadar ship; Torres guessed one had belonged to the Vorta, but since the Jem'Hadar didn't sleep, she had no idea what the other two had been used for. She didn't take any of those, opting to sleep in one of the bays with the ensigns. They had invited the chiefs to join them, but they had declined in favor of sharing the other bay with the mechanics, stating that they needed to supervise the younger crewmen. Despite the fact that chiefs had the same status as junior officers in Starfleet hierarchy, enlisted personnel tended to be closer to each other than they were to officers, and Torres suspected that they were more comfortable being the authority figures in a room of crewmen than the opposite in a room of officers. "I'd appreciate breakfast when you come back in the morning, though. I'm getting tired of field rations."

Jedha chuckled. "Already? You're in for a rough few weeks," he teased. "What do you want?"

"Raktijino, extra strong, and banana pancakes. And bacon."

"I think I can do that."

She smiled. "Thanks, Jedha. I'll see you in the morning." She was halfway off the bridge before she turned back. "You should probably rest your feet to get them ready for your next shift of standing in one place while flying a ship in a straight line."

"It's a rough life, being a pilot," he dead-panned. He jerked his head up quickly, looking sheepish. "Sorry. That was a stupid thing to say."

She smiled sadly. "Tom used to say the same thing," she said. "Have a good night, Jedha."


	31. 2374

Stardate 51064  
February 2374  
Starbase 375

The two weeks of turning the ship over to the _Defiant_ crew somehow managed to drag on and fly by too quickly, the deadline of their departure for the mission adding a frantic feeling to their instructions with the new crew about how the ship operated. "I have been on this ship before," Chief Miles O'Brien complained to Lt. B'Elanna Torres as she explained how the warp core works.

"Right," she agreed. "And your attempts to get it running when you didn't know the systems added two months to our repair timeline."

"I'd like to see you try to get a crash-landed ship flying with Jem'Hadar soldiers firing at you," he said. She raised her eyebrows.

"Let's not get in a situation that would require that," she replied. "Let me show you where these controls are on the bridge."

"I've seen the bridge!" he exclaimed, but followed her anyway.

"How do these Jem'Hadar function without a viewscreen?" Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax was complaining as they stepped onto the bridge.

"Forget the viewscreen," the Ferengi cadet—Nog?—said in response. "I don't understand why they don't have chairs."

"They don't sit," Torres commented absently. "And the controls are too wide. There was no way to place a chair that would allow you to reach everything you needed to. Best we could do was get you that mat you're standing on. Should keep your feet from getting too fatigued. As far as the viewscreen," she said, turning to Dax. "It was on the list, but would have added at least another month. And then who knows how long to reverse all the stations so that you'd be facing the viewscreen instead of the middle of the room. Starfleet Command only gave us time for primary systems."

"And the replicators?" O'Brien asked.

Torres sighed. "We tried," she said. "The systems aren't compatible. I'm still working on it."

"Captain Sisko said we have enough field rations," the cadet—it was definitely Nog, Torres decided—chimed in.

"Don't get me started on field rations," Torres said warningly. "It's doing to be a long three weeks."

"And I suppose an infirmary was too much to ask for?" They all turned to see Dr. Julian Bashir enter the bridge. "I had to put the medical supplies in my quarters."

"We'll try not to have a medical emergency while you're sleeping," Lt. Commander Dax teased.

"Starfleet biobeds aren't compatible with Jem'Hadar systems," Torres said. "It's on the list of things we're working on. The best we could do in the timeline is a cot and a medical tricorder."

"Very austere," Dr. Bashir commented.

"You're the one who wanted to practice 'frontier medicine'," Chief O'Brien said.

"I guess I should have been more careful about what I wished for."

"Lieutenant." The joking between the members of the _Defiant_ crew stopped as Captain Sisko stepped onto the bridge, one of the virtual headsets in hand. "What can you tell me about this?"

"The neurologists at Starfleet Medical say to expect headaches, sir," Torres replied. "They said it would get better with time, once you get used to it."

"How much time?"

She shrugged. "Probably different for everybody."

He made a sound like he was thinking about that response. "Did you try it?" he asked a minute later.

"No, sir," she replied. "It's not compatible with my neurology." Dr. Zalun had been emphatic about that; emphatic enough that she wondered if it really was a matter of incompatibility or if he was concerned that it might somehow do something to trigger demyelination. He spent a lot of time concerned about that, despite the fact that her nerves and their myelin sheaths had been stable for the last five years and she tended to avoid situations that might involve snakes. "Most of my ensigns and crewmen did, though."

"And how did they do?"

She frowned. "They all got headaches," she replied. "Some were nauseated as well, some vertigo. The younger ones adjusted faster than the chiefs."

"And they say wisdom comes with age," Sisko sighed as he slipped on the headset.

Several hours into first day of what was anticipated to be a week's journey to the ketracel-white facility, B'Elanna Torres was seated in the makeshift mess hall with a ration packet on the table in front of her and her favorite thought exercise—how to make a cloak compatible with the ship's systems—on a PADD. "I'm trying to prepare for the _Bre'Nan_ , but I have no idea where to get _Var'Hama_ candles."

Torres blinked at Lt. Commander Dax. She recognized all the words that the science officer had spoken, but had no idea what she was talking about or why Dax thought she would. "I'm sorry?" she finally said, earning a sigh from Dax as the science officer took the seat across the table from her.

"Worf is taking these wedding preparations _very_ seriously," Dax said. "And I'm trying, but there are just so many rituals and it seems unnecessarily complicated."

Torres snorted as she returned her attention to her PADD. She was vaguely aware of how unprofessional that was when talking to a senior officer, but figured the lieutenant commander had started it when she started talking about wedding planning. "I got married at Starfleet Headquarters to the son of an admiral," she commented. "If you're looking for advice on Klingon wedding rituals, you're asking the wrong half-Klingon." Her middle finger absently rubbed the slightly raised scar on her palm from the _chuHwl'_ , the one vaguely Klingon thing they had at their wedding, but she didn't mention that.

"That's what I suggested!" Dax exclaimed. "Well, not necessarily Starfleet Headquarters, but you know what I mean. But Worf's been dreaming about having a Klingon wedding since he was a little boy. And I've already been married five times." Torres frowned at that. "Twice as a groom, and three times as a bride." That didn't help Torres' confusion, and she was beginning to wonder if she was imaging this conversation. "I'm a joined Trill," Dax explained. "I'm the eighth host of the Dax symbiont."

"Ah," Torres said, beginning to understand. She vaguely remembered something about Trills and symbionts from her Interspecies Protocol course at the Academy, but honestly spent most of that class working on homework for her other classes. It was awkward enough having to take a class that was mostly about interspecies sex as the product of such a union; she certainly wasn't going to pay attention to it, too.

"So I figured I'd let him have this one," Dax continued, and Torres still had no idea why she was in this conversation. "But I just don't know what to do about the _Bre'Nan_."

"Is that the thing that's like a bachelor party but without fun?" Torres asked with a frown.

"No, that's the _kal'Hyah_ ," Dax said. "The _Bre'Nan_ is all the posturing that the bride must do to get the approval of the mistress of the House."

"Ah," Torres said again. She smirked slightly. "I had nothing to worry about there. My mother-in-law loves me. She once said—" She stopped abruptly, the smirk falling from her face. She had completely forgotten about that moment: they were in the Parises' kitchen, working through last minute wedding plans. It was the Saturday before their wedding; she had finished her last ever track meet earlier that day, the Federation Championships, placing third and breaking a Starfleet record, and was in a giddy good mood. She couldn't believe it was her life—she exceeded her own athletic goals, was a Starfleet ensign about to start her first assignment, and was about to marry her best friend—and her giddiness had rubbed off on Alicia and Tom. Owen had long before been exasperated by their silliness and retreated to his office, leaving the three of them to finalize plans before Wednesday's ceremony. She couldn't remember Tom's suggestion, but it had made him grin and her and Alicia roll her eyes, and then Alicia said—.

Torres abruptly stood from the table headed for the door. "I need to check on the warp core," she said tightly.

"Your mother-in-law said she needed to check on the warp core?" Dax asked innocently. Torres stopped and turned to face her, and wanted to smack that teasing look right off her face.

"She said she'd be okay replacing Tom with me."

* * *

By the fourth day, Torres was spending most of her time in the ship's engineering section, because the _Defiant_ 's senior staff didn't seem to understand boundaries, but also didn't seem to know where engineering was. It was the best of both worlds: she could avoid their pesky questions and anecdotes and get work done. Although, to be honest, the ship was running perfectly smoothly and there was very little to do.

Even sleeping in the open bay with a dozen shipmates, she had gotten more rest on this mission than she had at almost any point in the last three years. And had supervised the mechanics recalibrating every weapon in the armory, given impromptu lessons on field repairs and salvage, and was somehow teaching _mok'bara_ to three crewmen.

 _*Sisko to Torres,*_ Captain Sisko commed as she was in the middle of showing some of the mechanics what all could be used as a power cell in a pinch.

"Torres here," she replied.

 _*We've been spotted by the_ Centaur _,*_ he said, his voice tight. She wondered if he was still wearing the headset despite the headaches. * _Now would be a good time to make sure that encrypted message to our allies really works.*_

"Sir, it's been transmitting continuously since we left Starbase 375," she replied. She didn't bother to point out that that's probably why the _U.S.S. Centaur_ was the first ship they'd come across in four days, despite the fact that they were in a decently crowded part of space near a contested border, assuming they hadn't it crossed it yet. "It should be going directly to their intelligence officer."

Her words were met with a silence long enough that she thought that Sisko had closed the comm, and then he said, _*They just fired in our general direction. Either something's wrong with their targeting sensors, or they were just putting on a show. We've crossed into Cardassian space and the_ Centaur _didn't follow. There are three Jem'Hadar fighters in range. I want you all to be ready in case the gig is up.*_

The gig was apparently not up, because nobody was firing on anyone, and the warp coils continued to hum along, the ship running so smoothly and the internal dampers so efficient that Torres would have sworn they were still at dry dock at UP, until some point in the sixth day. "Sir, we've dropped out of warp," Crewman Anand, commented needlessly, his eyes on the coils. Torres nodded as she tapped the controls.

"We must be at the ketracel-white facility," she said, seeing that the order to drop out of warp, and then come to a complete stop, came from the bridge. "Let's home the return trip home goes as smoothly as the trip out here."

And then the ship shook from an explosion. As Torres was slammed against a bulkhead, she wondered if maybe she should have been spending more time on the bridge after all.


	32. 2374

Stardate 51079  
February 2374  
Dominion/Cardassian Space

Lt. B'Elanna Torres blinked hard at the flash of brightness behind her eyes, and it faded in response. She slowly sat up, then stood, rolling out her neck and shoulders before shaking each of her legs, a quick test to confirm that everything seemed to be working and nothing seemed to be broken. "Report," she said into engineering, glancing around at the mechanics similarly making their way to their feet.

"I think something exploded, sir," Crewman Anand offered. "Or maybe we were fired on?"

"I meant, is anyone hurt," she replied. They all looked at each other, nobody volunteering anything, and she took that as a no.

She made her way to a control panel and ran a quick damage report, sucking in air through her teeth at what she found. Life support was draining fast. The deflector was down. Sensors were down. Internal and external communications were off-line. The guidance system was down. Shields were at 10%. The core matrix was fried.

She quickly switched to auxiliary life support, then triaged the rest of the repairs. They wouldn't go anywhere fast without the warp core, but that was going to be a more involved repair. They needed a place to hide from the Jem'Hadar first, which meant they needed the sensors, deflector, and guidance system. And shields, because at this point, it wouldn't take much more than a single shot to blow them apart. Auxiliary life support would keep them alive, but it would start to get uncomfortable in an hour or so. She ran a more detailed damage report. "Pagano," she barked. "The sensor relay is disrupted at J47. Fix it. We need those sensors five minutes ago. Kister, internal comms. It appears the problem is at A374. Comm me as soon as you get them back on-line. Salo, external comms. Go with Kister and see if you can find anything else wrong. Drkari, Intrieri, get on the shields." She looked around to see who else was there; with her, Chief O'Brien, and Nog, they had a total of fifteen in the engineering section. O'Brien and Nog had been on the bridge and were probably still there. They had seven in engineering, and the others were off-duty, but appeared to be have been woken by the blast and were wandering into engineering. "Wheeler, deflector. It appears the problem is in the induction stabilizer, but the emitter array doesn't look great, either. Erryion, life support. I don't know where the problem is, but you're going to have a lot of officers complaining in about an hour if you don't find it." She tapped her combadge. "Torres to the bridge."

No response. And then she remembered internal comms were down and swore under her breath.

"Anand, you're with me," she said to the crewman. "The core is down, and I'm betting the navigation controls are, too."

They made their way to the bridge, toolkits in hand. "Lieutenant," Captain Sisko said when he noticed her. "Report."

"Several key systems are off-line," she said. "I have crews addressing the most critical repairs."

"Casualties?" Dr. Bashir asked.

"Some bumps and bruises," she replied. "Nothing serious."

Captain Sisko nodded absently. "You know this ship better than anybody," he finally said. "Suggestions?"

"The repairs to the warp core are going to take the full attention of Chief O'Brien, Cadet Nog, and myself for at least three days," she replied. "The other engineers and mechanics can take care of the other systems while we work on the core. We need to get in a secured position where we'll be safe while making repairs. Landing would be preferred. We're working on getting sensors back on line to see if there's anywhere we can go."

"We'll be vulnerable on a planet," Sisko commented.

"We're vulnerable here," she replied. "It's our best option."

Sisko looked around the bridge as if just seeing the damage for the first time. "Lieutenant, Chief, Cadet, get started," he finally said. "Let me know as soon as sensors are back on-line. We'll see if we can find us a place to hide until we can run."

Torres didn't think she had ever been proud of anyone the way she was proud of Crewman Pagano when she announced that she had fixed the sensors, a feeling that immediately soured when she saw what the sensors did: two Jem'Hadar fighters headed straight for them. She didn't even time to swear before Captain Sisko also spotted them. "We need options!" he said.

"These sensor readings make no sense!" Torres exclaimed in frustration. "There must be something else wrong with the array."

"What if there's not?" Cadet Nog asked slowly, also looking at the readings. She turned to him, a sarcastic reply on her lips, but he had a thoughtful expression on his face. "I took a class on astrologic phenomena in the spring semester of my first year," he said, his voice picking up steam. "Captain Archer of the first _Enterprise_ —"

"A dark matter nebula," Torres interrupted. She vaguely remembered the story of Archer from her own Academy days, but remembered the key lesson. " _If_ that is a dark matter nebula," she said, emphasizing the 'if,' "our sensors won't work in there. Which means theirs won't, either."

"Is there any way to confirm that it is a dark matter nebula?" Captain Sisko asked, and Nog was happy to chime in.

"Captain Archer illuminated—"

"Not without giving away our location," Torres interrupted. Like any cadets, Nog would spend the next several minutes giving the textbook explanation if allowed, and they didn't have that kind of time. The ship shook as the Jem'Hadar fighters began firing on them.

"I think that ship has sailed," Sisko said tightly. "It's either there or it's not, and right now, that's our best bet. Take us in, old man."

"Captain," Nog said hesitantly. "If I'm remembering that lecture right, these kinds of nebulae can contain star systems and planets, and without sensors—"

"Noted, Cadet," Sisko said. "Commander, try not to hit a sun."

"I'll do my best, Captain," Commander Dax said, sounding almost amused. The Jem'Hadar fired on them again, a direct hit that sent the ship shaking, klaxons bearing, Commander Dax flying, and consoles smoking.

They didn't hit a star, but did get caught up in the gravitational pull of an M-class planet. It was a rough landing, but they made it down in one piece.

Most of them. A few hours after they landed and security had set up a perimeter around the ship, Dr. Bashir was still examining Lt. Commander Dax in the makeshift sickbay in his quarters. From what Torres had gathered, it wasn't good, and that added an edge of urgency that she really hadn't needed.

After the rough landing, Torres ran another systems check and disseminated repair duties to the mechanics, and then she, O'Brien, and Nog got to work on the warp core. She discovered that they did know where engineering was, but confirmed that they still didn't understand boundaries. "Is it true that you're Admiral Paris' daughter-in-law?" Cadet Nog asked several hours into the repair. She frowned, but didn't move her eyes from the relay she was repairing.

"Where did you hear that from?" she asked sharply.

"So it's not true?"

She sighed. "Cadet," she said patiently. "I understand that you're…close, to your crewmates on the _Defiant¸_ but when you graduate and go into the 'Fleet, it's really not appropriate to question superior officers about their personal lives unless they bring it up."

She thought that that ended that line of questioning, but about fifteen minutes later, he commented, "I thought Earth females changed their names when they got married."

Torres bit back the impulse to point out that she wasn't born on Earth, nor lived there currently. She counted to ten and told herself that he was just curious about human customs, and given that there were a lot of humans in Starfleet, it would be helpful for him to understand some of them. "Some do, some don't," she finally said. "It's… cultural."

Nog seemed to consider that. "So you are from a human culture that does not?"

She snorted a laugh. "I was raised by a Klingon mother on a Federation colony," she said. "I'm not really 'from' a human culture." She could have claimed that Spanish cultures had different naming traditions and women didn't usually change their names with marriage - in fact, John's house in Mexico was registered to 'John Torres-Moreno', and Navi was listed as 'Naviana Torres-Tulon' - but while Isela spoke Spanish and cooked the best _carne asade_ and _barbacoa_ that Torres had ever had, she was also very proud of the fact that her family had been in Arizona for so many generations that she could produce documentation of ancestors being citizens of a country known as the United States of America, and liked to joke that she was better about following 'English' traditions than 'Spanish' ones. She had changed her name when she got married, but used her maiden name—Moreno—as a journalist until she retired, in order to create a distance between her professional and personal lives. "I just didn't see the need to change it," she said simply.

"And your husband doesn't mind?" Nog continued to press. Torres gave a snort of laughter.

"Why would that have made a difference?" she asked. It was such a non-issue that they had never even talked about it. Alicia had changed her name when she got married—Torres had no idea why; she had never asked—and Nicki had as well, but she freely admitted that that was part of her rebellion against Owen and his rules for the family. Sydney had tried being Ensign Paris, but had been teased about being an admiral's daughter so much by her fellow security officers during her first assignment that when she and Jens changed ships a few years later, she became Lt. Wyland.

"When you have children, how do you decide what name they have?"

She laughed despite herself. "We have a daughter," she said. "She has her father's name. That's traditional in most human cultures."

"You have a daughter?" Chief O'Brien asked. Torres nodded.

"Izzy. She's two."

"That's a fun age," the chief said. "My daughter Molly is six, and my son, Yoshi, is eight months old." He launched into some story about something his daughter had done when she was Izzy's age, and Torres made a mental note to thank him later for distracting Nog from the questions about her personal life.

* * *

On the second day on the planet, Torres and O'Brien were working through the recalibration of the warp coils, a long, tedious process that Torres preferred to leave to other people, because it involved hours of laying on her back without moving, and that was somehow much harder on her body than running a sub-3 hour marathon in San Francisco with her sister-in-law. Which she got a painful reminder of when her muscles began cramping. " _Hu'tegh!"_ she exclaimed through gritted teeth. It felt like every muscle in her left leg was contracted as tight as they could be, all at the same time.

She still had the muscle stimulators she had used when she was in a coma and recovering from it, and still used them when she had long repairs that kept her in one position for a prolonged period of time, in order to keep her muscles from cramping. She had put them on under her uniform after her most recent sonic shower, but forgot to turn them on when they began the recalibration.

"You okay?" O'Brien asked from his position a meter away.

"Just a leg cramp," she managed through gritted teeth as she groped for the stimulators. She finally got the one on her calf, then the one on her thigh, and felt her breathing begin to slow as she felt them begin to work on the cramp. "I'll be fine in a minute."

"Let me call Dr. Bashir," O'Brien offered.

"No, I'm fine," she protested, but he had already called the physician.

Her leg was mostly better by the time Dr. Bashir arrived. "I'm fine," she protested again as he scanned her leg. "I just don't do well when I don't get to move around."

"There's no harm in being thorough," he said. "You have a complicated medical history."

She snorted. "I know," she replied. "I was there for it." Mostly; all she remembered about the snake bite incident was loading up the shuttle at the end of the course, the sharp pain from the puncture of the snake's fangs, an intense heat that began at her ankle, and the next thing she knew, she was in a hospital bed and Tom was asleep in the chair next to her. She had raised her hand to poke him, startled by how difficult that simple movement had been. She meant to tease him about drooling on her bed, but the words didn't come out right, her tongue not cooperating with her brain. She had panicked, not knowing what was going on, and Tom had to call for a nurse, who called for Dr. Zalun, who had beamed over from home so quickly that he was still in his pajamas. "I just need to stretch my legs."

Dr. Bashir frowned and put away his tricorder. "A Jem'Hadar ship crashed a few kilometers from here," he said. "Nobody is stretching their legs very far." She neglected pointing out that the security officers on patrol were, because she didn't want anything to be interpreted as volunteering for patrol. "The Vorta was injured and will recover," Dr. Bashir continued. She wondered if he was just talking to fill silence she felt no need to be filled or if he honestly thought she cared about what was going on outside engineering, much less outside the ship. She turned off the muscle stimulators—they were great for preventing cramps and slowing muscle atrophy, but they also blocked intentional movements—and gave her knee a few experimental bends before she determined it wasn't going to cramp again. "Their supply of White is limited. They're going to get desperate," Bashir continued. If he was saying this to give her incentive to work faster, he was talking to the wrong engineer. She only knew how to work at one speed, and still had yet to take a break since they landed.

"Thanks for the update," Torres said as she stood and did a few tight laps around the warp core, a pretty poor substitute for the long miles she needed to run to work off her feelings of cabin fever. She returned to her location by Chief O'Brien, this time turning on the muscle stimulators on both legs before returning to her supine position under the warp coils. Already fully focused again on her work, she didn't even register the sound of Dr. Bashir leaving a few minutes later.


	33. 2374

Stardate 51083  
February 2374  
Dominion/Cardassian Space

Torres had no idea how long a day was on the planet, because she hadn't seen the outside. The crew of the _Defiant_ lived by 26 hour days; Torres didn't know why and didn't care, because it's not as if she was sleeping, anyway. She was a demanding engineer and leader, but wasn't unrealistic and didn't expect anything unrealistic from her crew. She knew everyone had their own personal limits of how long they could be productive, and expected them to stop and rest when they needed to.

She had no idea what time it was, but knew that both Chief O'Brien and Cadet Nog were sleeping, which was fine with Torres, as she was working through a complicated repair that was better done alone. "Have you slept at all since we landed?" a voice asked behind her. She sighed. Dr. Bashir again.

"No," she answered simply.

"You need sleep."

"You've seen my medical records," she said, still not looking at him. "You know that's not true. I just need more caffeine and tri-ox."

"That's not exactly what your medical records say," he replied. "Caffeine and tri-ox are not a substitute for sleep. Everyone needs sleep."

"And I'll get some," she said. "Just as soon as we get this ship back in space."

She thought he was going to let it go, but then he said, "Your physician entrusted your care to me."

Torres snorted. "She's not my physician," she said. "She's my daughter's pediatrician." She looked over at him to see him blinking in surprise. "And my sister-in-law," she added. "She worries too much."

"There's nothing wrong with having people in your life who care for you."

She didn't acknowledge his words, because he wasn't a counselor and neither of them had the time to go over Paris family dynamics in the post-Tom era. Or even the post-Battle of Sector 001 era. "We should have the ship operational again in about twelve hours," she said instead. "We won't be able to communicate with any allied ships until we leave the nebula."

"We may need you to pause on the repairs." Both Torres and Bashir turned to the entrance of engineering to see Captain Sisko, looking more tired and drawn than Torres felt. "The Jem'Hadar are going to attack. The Vorta gave me their attack plan and will surrender to us when the Jem'Hadar are defeated."

"Why?" Torres wasn't able to stop herself from asking. "What's he getting out of this?"

"Not dying on this planet," Sisko replied. "They're out of White. Their ship is not operational, and even if it were, he couldn't operate it without a crew." Torres frowned, still not understanding, but there was a lot about people doing what they did that she didn't understand. "We need everyone available to defend our position when they attack," Sisko continued.

"If they're low on White, it won't be much of an attack," Dr. Bashir pointed out.

"No, it won't," Sisko agreed. "The Third knows he's being manipulated by his Vorta. I have tried to explain that they have options, but I don't think that will make a difference." He seemed lost in thought for a second before turning to Torres. "I understand you can run."

She barely bit back a snort at the understatement. It had been almost four years, and nobody had come close to approaching her Starfleet decathlon record. She didn't do sprints anymore, but a sub-3 hour marathon in San Francisco wasn't much to scoff at, either. "Yes, sir," she said instead.

He outlined his plan to defend their position against the Jem'Hadar attack; low on ketracel-white or not, they were still designed to hunt and kill, and having a solid defense plan was always better than being unprepared. Knowing what their offense would be didn't hurt, either, assuming that Sisko trusted the Vorta, which he didn't appear to. The plan would involve Torres and a security ensign doing a lot of running with a phaser rifle; that wasn't her preferred way to run, but she was going to take what she could get. She was also a damn good shot both phasers and phaser rifles, thanks in part to her better eyesight and faster reflexes from her Klingon heritage.

An hour later, she had traded her uniform boots for her training flats—it wouldn't be comfortable to run a marathon in those things, but they did the job a hell of a lot better than heeled boots and packed down in a standard duffel better than her usual running shoes—and was running along a ridge line behind the ensign at a pace much slower than she was accustomed to. They saw the Jem'Hadar approach, right on schedule, and strangely, approaching their crew mates while visible. "They're not doing that freaky cloaking thing," The ensign—Torres had heard his name and quickly forgotten it—commented nervously.

"I don't think they can when they're low on White," Torres commented quietly, settling herself in a sniper position. She had gleaned that from Nicki, who had learned it from Solaris Jaxon, who was still studying the Jem'Hadar and Vorta and Founders, despite now living on Bajor while DS9 was under Cardassian control. She aimed the phaser rifle at one of the Jem'Hadar and wished Nicki had passed along what parts of their bodies were most vulnerable to attack instead of complicated biochemistry of White withdrawal. But Starfleet Officer at war or not, Nicki was first and always a physician, and rarely considered the most efficient ways to kill other people.

As expected, the Jem'Hadar ignored Captain Sisko's pleas for them to surrender and fired, the Starfleet crew returning fire and quickly eliminating the threat. Torres had taken out three from her sniper position, not moving until she saw the Vorta approach Captain Sisko from wherever it had been that he had been hiding, and then it was time for the second part of the plan. Both Torres and the security officer jumped up from their prone positions and again ran along the ridge, heading in the direction the Jem'Hadar had come from, ensuring they hadn't left anyone behind for a second-wave attack. "We need to find that ship," Torres said. Captain Sisko had said that they had been hiding in a cave, but there had to be a ship somewhere.

The cave hadn't been far from the Starfleet crew's ship, and they found the other ship about two kilometers further away. They went through the motions of systematically ensuring the ship was clear of any Jem'Hadar or Vorta, even though it had been obvious from the beginning that it was empty. "Cover me," Torres ordered once they were on the bridge, as she tried to power up the ship to run a damage report. No such luck. "We need to go down to engineering," she said, and the ensign dutifully followed, his rifle still at the ready.

As soon as she walked into engineering, she started swearing. "They trashed their own ship!" she exclaimed in frustration, seeing the disruptor blasts and ripped out circuitry.

"Why would they do that?" the ensign asked dumbly.

"So we couldn't take it!" she snapped, wondering how that wasn't obvious. She glared at a destroyed console for a long minute before releasing another long string of Klingon curses and slammed her hand hard against it. "God _damn_ it!" she fumed, staring at the jagged cut along her palm, the visual representation of her anger and her tendency to self-destruct when she got that way. She didn't know why she was so angry at the ship, or the Jem'Hadar, or anything else. They had a ship that would be flying again by the next day. They didn't need another, and in fact, another ship would just be another complication for her, but the sight of those destroyed consoles set her off in a way that had no explanation. "Let's go," she said crisply, heading for the docking port without looking back.

She was so angry that the poor ensign couldn't keep up with her on the run back to their own ship.

"You're bleeding," Dr. Bashir said when she returned. She frowned, then followed his eyes down to her hand. She had forgotten her injury in the adrenaline rush of her anger, masking her pain.

"It's fine," she said brusquely. "I need to get back to engineering." She handed off the rifle to the ensign and brushed past the physician to enter the ship.

"It will just take a minute," Bashir said, following her toward engineering.

"I said it's fine," she snapped.

"You'll work better with two good hands," Chief O'Brien pointed out as she grabbed a hypospanner. She glared at him, and then realized she was holding the hypospanner in her left hand. She gave O'Brien, and then Bashir, another glare, but reluctantly relented.

"There's an old scar under," she said. "Don't change it."

Dr. Bashir frowned, but the expression on her face must have been serious enough that he didn't see the need to question it. "I'll do my best," he said.

She watched her palm closely as he ran a dermal regenerator over it, watched as the new cut disappeared, and watched as the scar Tom had made with the _chuHwl'_ faded. "Stop!" she exclaimed, forcing her hand roughly from his. "What did you do?" she asked harshly, her fingers frantically feeling for where that scar should have been, finding only smooth skin. Her eyes went to his and she watched him take a step back in surprise. Or fear, and she knew on one level how hostile she must have looked, but couldn't think about that now. She couldn't process anything beyond the fact that _it was gone_.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Bashir stammered. "I didn't—"

She wanted to hit him. Hard. She wanted to punish him for what he had done, and got as far as clenching her fist before she heard Tom's voice in the back of her head. _Let's go for a run, Torres._

And so she did.

* * *

Ten hours later, she was again outside the ship, now reclining on the hull, her eyes up on the dark purple sky but not really seeing it, her middle finger of her right hand still desperately trying to find the familiar scar. She hadn't realized until it was gone how often she did that, rubbing that raised line of skin absently, a part of her remembering the moment she had earned that scar.

And now it was gone.

She turned her head at the sound of the hatch opening, and tried to make her way to her feet at the sight of Captain Sisko sticking his head out of the ship. "As you were, Lieutenant," he said, climbing out to join her.

A few long minutes passed without either of them saying anything before she couldn't take it anymore. "We'll be ready to lift off in about two hours, Captain," she finally said. "I'm running one last diagnostic now."

He nodded at the news, which he probably already heard from Chief O'Brien. "I understand you were injured in the other ship," he said conversationally, and she stiffened, knowing where this was going.

"Yes, sir," she said. "It wasn't serious, sir."

"I know," he said, his voice still annoying calm. "Dr. Bashir reported that you were more upset by the dermal regenerator than the injury itself."

"That was unprofessional of me," she said after a long pause. "I'm sorry, Captain." She couldn't help but think on the number of times she had said those exact words in her four years at the Academy. _That was unprofessional of me. I'm sorry_. It had practically been a mantra her first two years. And then she had learned her lesson and started being a little bit more professional.

"Tensions get a little high on these missions," he said simply, neither accepting nor rejecting her apology.

She didn't know how long they sat in silence before she spoke again. "I lose a little bit more of him each day." She didn't know why she said those words, didn't know that she was going to say them until they were already out.

"Grief is a funny thing," Captain Sisko said after several beats of silence. "It's been almost seven years since Jennifer died, and there are moments that I can swear I hear her talking to me, as if she was right there. I see something that reminds me of her, and all of a sudden, all of the pain is back."

"I don't want the pain to go away," she said softly. "I don't want to forget him."

"Lieutenant," Sisko said, almost gently. "You never forget. And the pain never goes away. It changes. It becomes almost like an old friend. But it never goes away."

"Tom twisted his wedding ring with his thumb," she said, her fingers again trying to find that scar. "I don't think he realized he did that. I don't wear my ring often, because engineering is not a place for any sort of jewelry, but I had a scar…" Her voice trailed off, not wanting to explain the ceremony they had created for their wedding, not knowing how to say that he had cut her without it sounding…abusive. "And now it's gone, and I miss it, and I feel like another piece of him is gone, too. And _I_ did that. _I_ got angry about that damn ship, and that's _so damn symbolic_ of our entire marriage when I paid more attention to those ships than to my own husband—"

"Can you fix it?"

"My husband is _dead_ , Captain. It's a little late to fix my marriage."

"The ship, Lieutenant," he clarified. "Can you fix it?"

She blinked hard at the question and bit back the impulse to give him a harsh retort. Could she fix it? She wasn't one for false bravado; she didn't claim to be able to fix everything. They were pretty fast and loose with decommissioning ships when she was the Repair Company commander.

And yet she had that damn S-Class shuttle, which had been in worse shape than anything else that had gone through the shipyards.

She thought back at the events of a few hours before, at the crashed ship that the other crew had left behind. They had trashed it, yes, but it was still mostly in one piece. The warp coils had appeared to be unharmed. She hadn't had the opportunity to do any sort of diagnostics, and yet… "Yes," she finally said. "We can fix it. It's just going to take time that we don't have."

He shrugged. "Then we'll take it with us," he said. "We'll tractor it home."

She snorted a laugh, and then saw that he was serious. "I guess I better check the tractor beam, then," she said as she stood up.

"That sounds like a good idea, Lieutenant," Captain Sisko replied. "And Lieutenant," he said as she got to the hatch. She turned to face him again. "It's not meant to be easy."

She wasn't sure what exactly he was talking about—marriage? Starfleet? Parenting?—but at the same time, she knew what he meant. She gave a single nod and descended into the ship.


	34. 2374

Stardate 51088  
February 2374  
Federation Space

Lt. B'Elanna Torres frowned as she surveyed the selection of ration packs, and then sighed and grabbed one at random. "Breakfast of champions," Chief O'Brien commented as she sat across from him.

"If this is what the champions eat, I hate to think what the losers have," she replied.

"Also this," he replied with a wry smile. "Sleep well?"

"Well enough." It had been four days since they had lifted off of that planet, pulling another captured Jem'Hadar ship with them. Once they were safely out of the nebula, she had headed to the bunk room and slept for almost eight hours. Not record breaking for her, but still more than twice as long as usual. She had requested that she be the first to head over to the new ship to perform an assessment, in part because she didn't trust anyone else to do it and in part to ensure that she would have the place to herself when she woke up. Once she got over there, she found that in her more well-rested state, the ship didn't look quite as bad as it had initially. It would still take quite a lot of work, but they learned a lot from the first one; Starfleet could probably start taking it on covert and ethically questionable missions after a month or so. She had spent most of her time in the new ship since then, prioritizing repairs and starting on what could be done while being tractored in space. "Things going well over here?"

"Well enough," he replied, making her smile. "Are you taking the other ship back to UP?"

"It's heading that way. I didn't ask about the details of how it's getting there." Commander Winters had been her second comm after they returned to Federation space; the Parises had been the first. Owen had looked visibly relieved to see her and was happy to put Izzy on the comm. They had had a long conversation about the penguins at the aquarium, and B'Elanna was a little sad that Izzy had seemed completely unaffected by her mother's absence over the past several weeks. "I'm going to head back over to the other ship as soon as I'm done eating… breakfast," she said, making a face down at the ration pack and earning a chuckle from O'Brien. "Let me know if you need anything over here."

"Will do, sir," the chief promised.

She beamed over to the other ship to find Crewman Pagano sitting on the floor of engineering next to an open console, painstakingly going to through a detailed repair of the targeting array. "Pagano," Torres said in surprise. The young crewman lifted her head quickly in alarm, obviously unaware that anyone else had beamed over.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said quickly. "I…" Her voice trailed off and she looked around as if unaware of what she had been doing. "I know I should have waited until you assigned a task, but—"

"It's fine, Pagano," Torres interrupted. "I just didn't expect to see anyone over here." She hadn't been assigning any repair tasks to the new ship, because everyone deserved a little bit of rest after what had happened on the planet and any repairs they could do while being tractored space were only minor.

"I can leave if you want," the crewman offered.

"Unless you have an assigned task on the other ship, there's no need," Torres replied. She frowned at the crewman; Pagano was usually well put-together, but she was looking a little rough. "Are you okay, Pagano?"

"I'm fine, sir," Pagano said automatically.

"Brynn." At the sound of her first name, the crewman exhaled and looked away. When she looked up at Torres, her eyes were filled with tears.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said, wiping at her eyes. "I just… I haven't been able to sleep. I thought if I came over here, at least there would be something I could do."

"You don't need to apologize to me for doing work," Torres said. "But if you're having problems sleeping, I'm sure Dr. Bashir can give you something—"

"No, it's not that," Pagano said quickly. "It's just…" Her voice trailed off, and then she said in one long rush, "I killed somebody. And I can't stop thinking about that. And I keep seeing it, and that was just one person, and we're at war and if I can't even deal with shooting one person what's going to happen if I'm in some sort of battle and I just don't think I'm good enough for Starfleet."

Torres took a deep breath. Being comforting was never something she was good at, even with Izzy. "The man you killed was trying to kill you."

"I know," Pagano managed. "But that doesn't help."

Torres knew that pointing out the Jem'Hadar didn't have the same views of life and death as humans wouldn't help. They were hatched and didn't have families; nobody mourned them after they were gone. But humans had a fatal flaw, and that was that they viewed everyone and everything—other sentient species, animals, plants, inanimate objects—as if they lived and felt and valued the ways humans did. "They were dying, Pagano," she said instead. "They were out of ketracel-white and they can't live without it. My sister-in-law says that's a painful way for them to die. It would be like…dying of thirst. And they wanted to die on their own terms instead. In battle. The way they were designed to."

"Couldn't we have helped them?" Pagano asked. "I mean, to live. Not to kill themselves. Because they kinda made us help them with that."

"Not if they didn't want our help," Torres replied. "War is messy, Pagano. You did exactly what was needed of you and we all made it through the day."

Pagano seemed to think about her words for a long minute. "Does it get easier?" she finally asked, her voice small.

Torres was tempted to point out that that was also her first battle, but she didn't, not when she knew the answer. "You get better," she replied. "But it doesn't get easier." She hoped it didn't, anyway. She hoped it wouldn't for Pagano, because she couldn't bear the thought of that talented teenager who was kind to Izzy and yearned for motherhood losing any of her humanity or anything that made her who she was. "You're more than good enough for Starfleet, Brynn. You're good enough to go to the Academy and become an officer."

Pagano smiled slightly and shook her head. "That's not me, sir," she said, sounding more confident now. "I've always been good with my hands, but I am _not_ good with books. I don't want to do what you do, sir. I want to be a chief. Like my dad was." Her smile widened. "He was so proud that my first assignment out of tech school was with the Repair Company at UP, because that was _his_ first assignment, too."

 _*Sisko to Torres,*_ her combadge chirped before she could respond. She gave Pagano an apologetic smile before tapping on it.

"Torres here."

 _*General Martok would like to see you on the_ Rotarran _.*_

"I'm a little busy right now, Captain."

 _*That wasn't a request, Lieutenant.*_ Torres gave Pagano another apologetic smile as she rose to her feet.

"Aye, Captain. I'll beam right over."

Torres had never been on a Klingon ship before, but if she had been asked to describe what she thought it would be, the _Rotarran_ would have fit that perfectly. The _bekk_ at the transporter controls escorted her to the mess hall, where miscellaneous crew members were eating and talking. The room got quiet as she entered; quiet enough that she heard one of them mutter, "Just look at her ridges."

Her hands flew to her forehead in mock alarm. "Oh, no!" she said sarcastically. "What happened?" She rolled her eyes as she dropped her hands. "Fucking bastard," she muttered. She usually preferred to swear in Klingon, because it sounded so much harsher—and because she could throw in random other Klingon words and her colleagues didn't know the difference; she once told an ensign that he had a pleasant dog after a particularly stupid mistake, and he looked as if it was the worst insult he had received—but she got an immense feeling of satisfaction at swearing in Standard to a Klingon audience.

Lt. Commander Worf and Lt. Commander Dax came in a minute later—Dr. Bashir had transported the science officer to the _Rotarran_ immediately after their rendezvous, as the Klingon ship's infirmary, while not great, was still better than none—and an older man that Torres could only assume was General Martok right behind them. "You must be Lt. Torres," the man said. "I am General Martok. We are honored to have you on our ship and request that you dine with us."

Torres glanced dubiously at the table; there was _gagh_ , of course, and Bregit lung, and several other dishes she wasn't sure she recognized, and a very large tankard of blood wine. "I would be honored, sir," she said, the only acceptable answer. And between Klingon food and ration packs, she wasn't convinced the _gagh_ was the worst choice.

She discovered that washing everything down with blood wine was the best way to eat Klingon food, and it might have been the blood wine talking, or the relief at not eating rations, but she kind of enjoyed what she was eating. "Captain Sisko has told us a great deal of your work," General Martok said, likewise digging into his food as if he had been eating rations for the last month. "You have brought great deal onto the House of T'PaH," he continued. She merely raised her eyebrows, slightly bothered but somehow not surprised that he knew her Klingon lineage. "It may not be a noble house, but it is a fine one. The engineer who created the Empire's first cloaking device was of your house."

"I thought it was the first warp drive?" she asked mildly. Martok burst out in laughter.

"Perhaps it was both!" he exclaimed. "Would you be interested in continuing your family's proud tradition of serving the Empire?"

She almost choked on her blood wine. "Thanks, but I have a job," she said when she recovered, and Martok again burst out in uncontrolled laughter.

"I do not mean on a permanent basis," he explained. "Our alliance now has two Jem'Hadar ships. The Klingon Empire would benefit from instruction on how to operate and repair one. And perhaps, we will make it three. Or four."

She thought it more likely that a Klingon crew would blow a Jem'Hadar ship out of space than capture one, but she kept that observation to herself. "What are you suggesting?" she asked.

"That you come to Qo'noS and teach our engineers what you have learned. We can head that way immediately."

"Not immediately," she said. "I teach classes at the Technical Services Academy. We have two more months of the term, and then I'll be free." She paused a second before adding, "My daughter hasn't been to Qo'noS," she said. "I'd like her to see it as well."

"As she should," Martok declared. "It will be arranged."

"In that case, I have a favor to ask as well," Torres said. She saw both Martok and Dax raising their eyebrows. "A cloaking device," she said. "I tried to integrate a Federation cloak on the ship, but couldn't make it work. I think I'll have more luck with a Klingon system."

Martok nodded. "Then a cloaking device you shall have! I will have one delivered to Utopia Planitia."

They finished their meal and another round or two of bloodwine before Martok declared that he was returning to the bridge. "Julian says I need to move around," Lt. Commander Dax said. "Lieutenant, I'll walk you back to the transporter room."

"I shall join you," Lt. Commander Worf declared.

"No, you won't," Dax said forcefully, and with the aggrieved sigh of a man accustomed to not getting his way, Worf headed for the bridge.

They walked in silence for a few beats. "She didn't mean it," Dax finally said. "Your mother-in-law," she elaborated. "She didn't mean what she said."

"I know," Torres agreed. "Tom's death was… hard. On Alicia. And on all of us." She left it at that, because there was too much of that story to tell.

"I was a test pilot," Dax said. "Well, Torias, my fifth host, was," she elaborated. "He died in a shuttle accident less than a year after he was joined. His wife, Nilani, warned him about going out on that flight, but she worried too much and he ignored her. I regret that."

Torres wasn't sure how pronouns worked with joined Trills, so she wasn't sure if it was Dax herself who regretted it, or if she remembered Torias' regret, or even if there was a difference. "I didn't worry about Tom," she said. "Not really. He had a dangerous job, but he was a good pilot and always careful. All those shuttles and all the stupid stunts he pulled, and it was a shakedown cruise of a ship that killed him." She paused, then said, "We just found out I was pregnant, right before he left on _Voyager_. He wanted to get out of the mission and stay home, but I wouldn't let him. Sometimes, I regret that." She paused again, then asked, "Do you think you'll ever forgive yourself for…dying?"

"We have a different view of death than most," Dax said. "So that's hard to answer. Torias hurt Nilani with his death, and I regret that, but hurting those we love when we die is inevitable. There's nothing to have to forgive." They were in front of the transporter room and she stopped and turned to face Torres. "If you're asking if Nilani ever forgave Torias for dying… I don't think she did."

Torres nodded slightly, not trusting herself to acknowledge the words further than that. She knew Tom had done nothing that needed forgiving; _Voyager_ hadn't been a dangerous ship, and while the Badlands were rough, he had been prepared for them, logging hours in the simulators. He had been the one who didn't want to go when they found out she was pregnant, and she was the one who insisted. And yet, there was a part of her that, even three years later, hadn't forgiven him for disappearing. For dying. For leaving her to raise Izzy on her own. "Good luck with your wedding preparations," she said instead.

"Have a safe journey back to Earth," Dax said in reply, giving her a smile before turning and walking back the way she came.

"Back to Earth," Torres murmured to herself before she entered the transporter room. Back to her real life, to a new Jem'Hadar ship that needed repairing, to the countless experiments she would run in efforts of integrating a viewscreen, replicators, or a cloak. Back to teaching new crewmen how to become mechanics. Back to Izzy.

* * *

As they stepped out of the airlock onto Starbase 375 four days later, Torres, Pagano, and Anand were greeted by their crew that had stayed behind. "You brought us a new ship," Bamber said in surprise. "We were betting you wouldn't even be returning with the old one."

"We wouldn't want you to get bored," she replied dryly. "It's not flyable. We'll meet up with it at UP in about two weeks. Captain Lin said the _Raza_ will be ready in about three hours to take us back to Earth. Let's not keep them waiting."

The ensigns, chiefs, and crewmen obediently turned and made their way to the _Raza_ 's airlock. All except Crewman Pagano. "Thank you, sir," Pagano said when the others were out of earshot. "It was an honor to work with you. I learned so much, and—"

"Pagano," Torres interrupted. She smiled at the young crewman. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

Chief O'Brien had asked Lt. Torres if he could steal Pagano for his own crew, and Torres would have been lying if she claimed to be surprised. The chief could recognize talent when he saw it, and Pagano was talented. But she was also young, and the battle on the planet had shaken her hard, so Torres told her that she would only agree if it was what Pagano wanted. Staying with the _Defiant_ crew and working almost exclusively on the captured Jem'Hadar fighter would undoubtedly mean more battles, more dangerous missions, more dangers. To her surprise, it was what Pagano wanted, and Torres had cleared it with Lt. Gonzalez and Commander Winters.

Now, on Starbase 375, Pagano surprised her again by giving her a tight hug. "I hope I get to work for you again someday," the crewman said.

"Whenever you want, I'll find a space on a crew for you," Torres promised. "Always remember: stay calm. Trust your training. Hit them before they can hit you."

Pagano nodded and pulled away. "Tell Izzy I said good-bye."

Torres said she would, and then turned to follow the rest of her crew toward home.

That would be the last time she saw Crewman Brynnlyleigh Pagano.


	35. 2375

Stardate 54472  
October 2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager  
_ Alpha Quadrant

B'Elanna lapsed into silence as she studied the computer console in front of her. "The diagnostic looks clear," she said, her voice in those clipped, no-nonsense tones she used while at work. Or while ignoring her feelings about something. "We're good to get moving again."

"You should probably let Captain Janeway know," Tom replied. He wanted to know more about this mechanic who had worked for her, but knew that he was going to have to wait for her to be ready for that.

She looked up and over at him, and he saw the barest of a smile on her lips before she tapped on her combadge. "Torres to Captain Janeway," she said, still looking at him. "Everything checks out. We're ready to resume course."

 _*Acknowledged, Commander,*_ Captain Janeway replied. _*We'll get moving again as soon as you return Lt. Paris to the bridge.*_

B'Elanna smiled at him before replying, "Aye, Captain. He's on his way." She closed the comm and gave him a quick kiss. "Go get us home, Flyboy."

Paris was still grinning when he strode onto the bridge a few minutes later, relieving Ensign Baytart from the helm. "Mr. Paris," Captain Janeway said when he took his seat. "Set a course. For home."

She first spoke those words more than six and a half years before, on the opposite side of the galaxy. He had been angry, hurt, not quite believing that he had been transported to the Delta quadrant, away from B'Elanna and the daughter he had not yet known was a daughter. He hadn't spoken then, but if there was one thing he had learned from his unintentional time as a helm officer, it was just how far he could go with the captain. At least, this captain. "Aye, Ma'am," he replied cheekily. "Course set in for Mars." He heard Chakotay's chuckle behind him. "Of course, I could schedule a swing by Earth first, if you'd prefer, Captain."

"That would be great, Mr. Paris."

Even though flying a starship in Federation space, under Federation speed limits, was boring, Tom found himself already strangely nostalgic. If he got the posting with the Ship Design Division, this would be his last time—at least, for a few years—piloting a ship as part of his official duties.

He was nostalgic enough that he stayed through Beta shift, and by some sort of unspoken agreement, he and B'Elanna both arrived at his quarters right after midnight. Izzy was again staying with Owen, which left them his quarters to themselves and left them to do what any parents who had the place to themselves after more than six years apart would do.

After a round of probably-louder-than-his-neighbors-would-appreciate sex, he replicated a bottle of champagne and a couple of flutes. "I'm sure Mom'll break out the real stuff when we get home," he said as he poured the glasses. "But here's to the trip home."

"We went through the bottles of 2361 Veuve that your parents had when we celebrated making contact with _Voyager_ ," B'Elanna informed him. "I'm not sure what they have now."

He gaped at her. " _All_ of it?" he asked in disbelief. "They only let us have _one_ at our _wedding!_ "

"We thought you were dead," she reminded him. "It was quite the celebration. The prodigal son returns and all that."

It made sense, but he still wasn't excited about missing out on a party where the vintage champagne had apparently been flowing freely. "You could have at least saved me a bottle," he grumbled. She laughed and kissed him.

They lounged around on the bed, talking, and it reminded him of that summer they were dating. She had stayed at his apartment almost every night, and with the exuberance and energy of youth, and the excitement of a new relationship, the nights that didn't result in sex were few and far between. But what he remembered most from that summer was exactly what they were doing now: relaxing on the bed, talking to each other, sometimes with drinks, sometimes with work, just being near each other. As much as he enjoyed sex with his wife, it was that closeness he had missed the most while he was gone.

"What happened to Pagano?" he asked, thinking of the way her voice trailed off when she had talked about saying good-bye to her crewman after the mission. Her smile faded, her eyes taking on a far-away look as she finished her glass of champagne.

"It was war," she finally said, her voice with the crispness it had when the alternative was vulnerability. "Sometimes bad things happen." Her expression softened, then turned thoughtful before she turned to him. She hesitated, then asked, "When Burke died," she began, "was it different because you had been his commander?"

It was his turn to become thoughtful. He leaned his head back on his pillow, staring at the ceiling as he thought about the question. "Burke was a mediocre and cocky cadet who became a terrible and cocky officer," he finally said. "He died while committing genocide, treason, and mutiny. That hurt a lot more than the fact that he died." For a few months after the _Equinox_ , those thoughts had kept him up at night. Had Burke always had that in him? Was there something he should have seen that plebe year that would hint to the man he had become? Was there something he could have done to change Burke's path in life; after all, B'Elanna had been angry and destructive, and he helped her learn how to be a good officer.

Or had it just been desperation, and who was to say that he wouldn't have done the same thing in a similarly desperate situation?

He realized she wasn't going to say anything else about her mechanic. He refilled her champagne flute and topped off his own before he took her hand and kissed her palm. It was smooth, in contrast to the raised scar on his own, but knowing what he was looking for, he could see the thin white line where the scar had once been. "I can fix this for you, if you want."

She smiled slightly, taking her hand back. Her middle and ring finger of her right hand curled down to that white line, the way they used to do absently when that scar was new. "It bothers me less now that you're alive again," she said, smirking at the phrase. "It was an overreaction from the stress, but also…" Her voice trailed off, and when she spoke again, her voice was low. "I didn't know how to be a good wife. Well, I still don't. I don't have a lot of practice, and in those months we were married before you disappeared, I spent a lot more time at work than with you. A lot more time than I had to spend at work. Time we could have spent together, and my guilt about that never really went away. When I cut my hand on that ship and Dr. Bashir accidentally erased _your_ scar while taking care of the other, it was like the universe was reminding me that I had _always_ taken you for granted, that I thought you would always be there when I was done with my latest project or my latest ship. And then you weren't, and there was nothing I could do to fix it."

He took her palm again and kissed it again. "I didn't marry the perfect wife," he said. "I married _you_. I thought you'd be more fun." She chuckled, and he pulled on her arm to bring her to him and gave her a long, leisurely kiss. "You found me," he reminded her when they parted again. "When everyone thought we were dead, you found me. That makes you a pretty damn good wife."

"I don't know why you're so surprised," she teased from a few centimeters away. "I always told you that if you died, I was going to track you down and kill you again."

"Should I fear for my life?" he asked teasingly. He remembered the last time she had said her usual words in person, right before she left _Voyager_ and went back to Utopia Planitia. Right before _Voyager_ 's airlocks had been sealed and they left the station. "How did you know that we were still out there?" he asked, this time seriously. "How did you know where to look?"

She smiled and kissed him again before straightening and reaching for her champagne flute again, lifting it into a toast. "Here's to Quantum Mechanics being a required class for engineering majors."


	36. 2374

Stardate 51155  
March 2374  
 _U.S.S. Voyager  
_ Delta Quadrant

 _*The time is 0800. The time is 0800,*_ the computer's voice announced, and Lt. B'Elanna Torres immediately sat up in alarm. 0800? Why the hell would the computer wait to wake her until 0800? Her alarm had been set for 0600 for almost a year, necessary to get in either a run or _mok'bara_ session before having to wake Izzy for daycare. She couldn't remember the last time she had set an alarm for 0800, and didn't remember doing so the night before.

It was dark in her room, much too dark, and it took her a minute to figure out why.

Her window was gone.

There should have been light streaming in from the window. It was almost summer at Mars Station, and the sun would be rising when her usual alarm went off at 0600; even with the curtains drawn, it should have been bright in her room by 0800, but the only illumination came from a light bar above her headboard.

A light bar she didn't have.

"Computer, lights, 50 percent," she ordered as she looked around the room. Nothing was familiar. The night stand should have had two framed holos—one from her wedding, one of her and Izzy in Madagascar—and a stack of PADDs, but all she found was a combadge. That painting Tom had found in Australia was missing. Izzy's toys somehow always migrated into her room—

Izzy.

"Izzy?" she called out, hearing the panic begin to creep into her voice. "Computer, locate Isela Paris."

 _*There are no crewmembers named Isela Paris on board,*_ the computer informed her.

"On board?" she echoed.

 _*Restate query,*_ the computer replied. She sighed in frustration. And fear.

"Computer, where am I?"

 _*Lt. B'Elanna Torres is in her quarters, deck 9, section 12,_ U.S.S. Voyager, NCC _—*_

" _Voyager_?" Torres interrupted.

* _Restate query,*_ the computer replied.

 _Voyager_. She was on _Voyager_? But…how? And if she was on _Voyager…_

"Computer, locate Tom Paris."

_*Lt. Thomas Paris is in his quarters, deck 4—*_

"Computer, stop," she ordered. She needed to think.

She was on _Voyager_. Tom was on _Voyager_. She had quarters on _Voyager_ , but they weren't with Tom. Which made less sense to her than the fact that she was on _Voyager_ , a ship that had disappeared and presumed to have been destroyed three years ago.

She wasn't going to get any answers sitting in "her" quarters, arguing with the computer.

She picked up the combadge on the nightstand and turned it over. It had her name and Starfleet ID on the back, but somehow, felt different than it should have. "Torres to Paris," she said, pressing on the combadge.

She heard the line connect and then heard a groan. _*C'mon, Torres,*_ her husband's voice complained. _*We're on beta shift. We were at Sandrine's until... I don't even remember what time. Let me sleep.*_ She opened her mouth in disbelief at hearing him and before she could say anything, he seemed to wake up. _*B'Elanna,*_ he asked slowly, _*do you know where you are?*_

"No," she said honestly, surprised and a little ashamed of the quiver of fear in her voice in the single syllable.

* _Stay right there,*_ he said. * _I'll be there in a minute. Paris out.*_

She didn't stay right there, but she also didn't leave the quarters. They were small—a bathroom with a sonic shower off the sleeping area, a living area with a couch, chair, coffee table, and a kitchen area that mostly consisted of a replicator—and after thirty seconds of exploring, she curled up on the couch, her knees close to her chest and her temple on her knee.

What the hell was going on?

She startled at the sound of the announcer chime. "Come in," she said a second later, and then there he was. Tom. Wearing that old uniform, the uniform he had been wearing when she kissed him goodbye before exiting _Voyager_.

He entered just far enough to let the door close behind him, and for a long second, they just stared at each other, and then she did something she hadn't done since Owen brought those two damn admirals to the TPG three years before.

She sobbed.

He seemed at a loss for a second, and then crossed the room and put his arms around her, and for the first time in three years, B'Elanna was held by her husband.

She didn't think she had cried long before she pulled herself back and wiped at her eyes. Tom was looking at her like he didn't know what to do or say, and she didn't know what to do or say about that. "Is this Gre'thor?" she finally asked, and watched as the bewilderment on his face increased.

"No," he said slowly.

"The Barge of the Dead, then?" she asked. "I thought it would look more…barge-like, but considering, I think _Voyager_ might be appropriate."

He frowned. "Are you talking about Klingon mythology?" he finally asked, and she realized that for all of the times she told him she'd be traveling down to Gre'thor to kill him again, she never really told him the whole mythology. And so she did, explaining Kortar and his condemnation, the Barge of the Dead and the collection of souls, the gates of Gre'thor and redemption to Sto-vo-kor.

"We're not dead, B'Elanna," he said. He paused, then asked, "What was the last thing you remember, before waking up this morning?"

She rubbed her forehead, still not knowing what was going on, but beginning to get the idea that Tom had a better idea than she did. "I blew out another replicator trying to integrate it into the Jem'Hadar ship, so I called it a day early," she said. "I picked Izzy up from daycare. I wanted to work on the shuttle, but it was a nice day and Izzy wanted to go for a hike, so we walked around the Station for an hour or so. Then I replicated dinner, put Izzy to bed, and worked on my thesis for a few hours. I went to bed somewhere between zero-two and zero-three."

He looked like none of the words she had just said made any sense to him. "Where do you live?" he asked.

"Mars Station," she said impatiently. She wanted to tell him that she had left, but then came back, because Mars was their home, but this didn't seem like the time. "Tom. What's going on?"

He seemed to think about his words for a minute before speaking. "There's been a quantum fissure," he finally said. "You're in a different universe than you're used to. We've had a different B'Elanna Torres here every day for the last week. We don't know why, and we don't know why any of you are only here for a day. And we don't know how to stop it and get people back where they belong."

She stared at him in disbelief, even though she knew that what he was saying was the only explanation that made sense. She took his chin in her hand and turned his jaw, seeing only unmarked skin where there should have been scars faint enough that she was the only one who knew what they were. She took his right hand and turned it, palm up, and again, saw only unmarked skin where there should have been a raised scar.

This was not her Tom.

She let his hand drop, and then rose from the couch and paced around the small quarters, processing what he had said. "I'm in an alternate universe," she said. "One where both of us are on _Voyager_ , and it didn't disappear."

"We did disappear," Tom interjected, and she spun to face him, her eyes wide in surprise. "We were transported to the Delta quadrant. We're around 60,000 light years from Earth."

"Sixty thousand…" she whispered.

So impossibly far away, and yet, if this _Voyager_ had been sent to the Delta quadrant…

"Is Captain Janeway the captain of this _Voyager_?" she asked, and he nodded. "I need to talk to her," she said, her voice picking up tempo. "I need as much data as I can get."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because you said that each of me only stays here for a day," she said. "So I have less than a day to learn everything I can about what happened to this _Voyager_ , just in case the same thing happened to the _Voyager_ in my universe."

"Why?" he asked again.

She stared at him for a long minute, debating what to say, or even where to begin. "I want to find _Voyager_ ," she finally said. He looked like he was about to say a smart-ass remark, so she continued before he got the opportunity. "I was an engineer on UP. My husband was a test pilot and _Voyager_ needed a pilot that could take a Starfleet ship into the Badlands. They told me three years ago that the ship had disappeared."

"Your husband," he said, his tone halfway between a question and a statement, and she smiled slightly.

"Lt. Thomas Eugene Paris," she informed him, almost enjoying the strange look of confused panic on his face. "And he's never met his daughter."

* * *

Tom hadn't left her side as she went to talk to Captain Janeway, and then to the astrometrics lab to try to memorize as much data as possible about _Voyager_ 's journey and the events that had impacted it. He hadn't been able to convince her to take a break for lunch, but did lure her away for dinner with promises about what her alternate self was like.

They ate in his quarters, on account of him not liking what was on the menu in the mess hall—some sort of casserole with some sort of rind—and then he kept to his promise, explaining to her why she had a provisional rank bar of a lieutenant, junior grade—she had been Maquis? If that wasn't proof of an alternate universe, she didn't know what was—and then told her some stories of the things her counterpart had done. She had dropped out of the Academy, but had somehow became the chief engineer. Was split in two people, one fully human and one fully Klingon. Worked with him Ensign Kim to break the warp ten threshold. Spent time on the holodeck with friends and was in a pretty heavy flirtation with her own Tom Paris.

"You love her," B'Elanna said softly. He looked up sharply and looked ready to deny it, but then looked away and nodded. "Have you told her?"

"She knows," he said, and she frowned.

"Have you told her?" she repeated. "Because if you think she somehow magically knows how you feel without telling her, I can be pretty sure you're wrong. I didn't even know my Tom was _interested_ in me until he told me that he loved me. Twice."

He smiled, but it was sad. "She was… embarrassed. A few months ago. There was some sort of… chemical imbalance, things got out of hand, and we almost had sex on an away mission. She wanted to forget the whole thing and I wouldn't let her. I told her that I'm not going to scare off that easily. The ball is solidly in her court now, and I just have to wait to see if she picks it up."

Now it was her turn to smile, and it was wistful. "My Tom did the same thing," she confessed. "Just be patient. Don't push her too hard. She will. If she's anything like me, she will."

He studied her for a minute. "You're different," he finally said. "You're… lighter."

"I think I have less baggage," she said, which was a weird thought, considering that she was a single parent with a missing husband and a demanding job that never let up. But she must have been lighter, because she had been able to rise up over whatever caused her counterpart to drop out of the Academy, hadn't been at war as a Maquis, had found a way to be herself without letting her temper get in the way.

Had fallen in love, had gotten married, had a baby, found a new family who loved her and supported her and never left her alone.

"You're different, too," she said. "You have an edge that Tom doesn't have."

He nodded. "Life took some detours," was all he said, and she wondered if those detours explained why he was still a lieutenant, junior grade when her Tom had been promoted to full lieutenant long before.

"What would you do if I were him?" Tom asked, abruptly and curiously. She raised her eyebrows and smirked.

"I don't think that's fair to any of us," she said. He looked confused, and then his cheeks turned pink, and she felt victorious at being able to embarrass a Tom Paris.

"What you would say to him, then?" he asked quickly.

She took a deep breath, trying to sort out her thoughts. "I miss him," she said, then looked at the other Tom. "I miss you," she said, now as if she were talking to her own husband. "You have a daughter, Isela Miral Paris. Nicki started calling her Izzy as soon as she was born, and it stuck. She's a great kid, Tom, although she's so much like you that she drives me up the wall. She's happy all of the time, _especially_ when driving me up the wall." She smiled slightly. "I know you didn't want me to have to do this on my own, and, Kahless, I didn't think I'd be able to, but we're doing okay. Your parents and your sisters help. When Nicki isn't being a pain in the ass." She took a deep breath and made herself look into his blue eyes. She didn't know how to read that expression on his face, because it was one that her Tom never had. Something that was almost pity, but something harder. "We're going to find you, Tom. We're going to find you and bring you home, and you're going to get to take Izzy out on her first shuttle ride. I'm not going to give up on you. You promised me that you would always do everything you could to be by my side, and I'm promising you the same thing."


	37. 2374

Stardate 51157  
March 2374  
 _U.S.S. Voyager  
_ Delta Quadrant

It was the crying of a child that awoke Lt. B'Elanna Torres, but it wasn't the cry of a two-and-a-half-year-old who had fallen out of her bed or had a nightmare. It was the cry of an infant.

"I got him," a voice grumbled next to her, and she turned in bed to see Tom dramatically flinging back the covers and groaning as he got up to get the baby. He yawned once, but was already making cooing noises as he lifted the infant from the bassinet and slowly made his way toward the replicator. He was good with Izzy, a natural father, just like B'Elanna knew he would be.

Except that wasn't Izzy. He had never met Izzy. And they weren't in their apartment on Mars.

She looked around her surroundings. They were clearly in a ship's quarters— _Voyager?_ There was no way to tell from bed—but larger than the quarters she had woken in the day before, and with a viewport. There was a bassinet in the corner of the room, and next to it, Tom in a rocking chair, holding an infant and a bottle and looking like he was barely awake.

"Tom," B'Elanna said. "Something's wrong."

He snorted. "The kid doesn't sleep. That's what's wrong."

She smiled slightly, remembering when Izzy was an infant and her similar dislike of sleep. "No," she said a second later, shaking her head. "Has there been anything unusual in the last few days? With me?"

"Hard to say," he said. "Neither of us has been sleeping more than fifteen minutes at a time."

She shook her head again. "No, not that," she said. "There was some sort of quantum fissure. I belong in an alternate universe. Yesterday, that Tom said they had had a different version of me every day for the past week."

He stared at her for a minute before shaking his head and rubbing his eyes. "If this is some sort of joke, I haven't had enough sleep in the last six weeks to figure out the punchline."

"Not a joke," she assured him. "Where are we? Is this _Voyager_?"

Tom looked up, confusion clear on his face. "Yes," he said slowly.

"Where are we?"

"Our quarters?"

"I mean," she said quickly, "where is the ship?"

"B'Elanna," he said, exasperated. "I haven't been on duty in six weeks. I have no idea what our current position is."

"I'm not trying to be difficult, Tom!" she snapped. "Are we in the Delta quadrant?"

"Yes." He paused, then sighed. "I really am not awake enough for this," he muttered. "And quantum mechanics gives me a headache, so if you had some sort of nightmare and need my help sorting it out, please tell me know so I don't have think about alternate realities."

"Not a nightmare. Not a joke," she assured him, then finally got out of bed. "Where do I keep my tricorder? I can prove it." At least, she thought she could. She hadn't even thought about quantum mechanics since she had to take it at the Academy and wasn't sure if she remembered how to set a tricorder to scan for quantum signatures.

"Your tools are probably still in your office," he said with another sigh. "My tricorder should be in the closet. On the shelf. Or the floor. I can't remember."

"At least that part is the same," she muttered. Her Tom was neat, but had a tendency to put things in a place that made sense to him at the time, but then forgot what that place was or why he put it there.

She found the tricorder on the shelf in the closet and reconfigured it in the way she thought made sense. She scanned the room to get its quantum signature, then turned the tricorder on herself and heard it beep to signal the detection of a different quantum signature. "Well, shit," Tom muttered, then rubbed his eyes again. "Okay. What do we do now?"

She felt a rush of love for this man; as tired and cranky as he was, he believed her and wanted to help her, and then felt a rush of disappointment. This wasn't her husband, wasn't her life, and she didn't know how she had gotten there or how to get back. "I don't know," she admitted. "I just… appeared in an alternate universe yesterday. And then appeared in this one today."

"Should we go to Sickbay?"

She frowned. "Do you think there are any experts in quantum mechanics in Sickbay?" she asked, genuinely curious. It wasn't like she had bothered to get to know any of the doctors or nurses on _Voyager_ before it departed, and had no idea what any of them knew.

"Doc's a lot of things, but I doubt that," he agreed with a sigh. "I think Captain Janeway would be the best bet, but it's… Computer, time?"

_*The time is 0347.*_

"Right," he said, sighing again. "Too damn early." He glanced down at the baby in his arms and frowned. The child didn't appear to care. "Well," he said, looking back up. "How about some coffee while we wait for a reasonable hour?"

They got their coffee and moved to the living area, settling into the couch and chair. At some point in the conversation, B'Elanna had taken the baby—Ben—from Tom. She hadn't enjoyed the newborn period and was relieved that Izzy was a little bit more independent every day—even though that came with "a lot more opinionated every day"—but she did like those little infant smiles as he tried out different facial expressions and those tiny little fingers and toes. "I had post-partum depression when my daughter was an infant," she said to Tom. "I feel like I missed out on the fun parts of having one this little."

"If there are fun parts, we haven't hit them yet," he grumbled. "He doesn't sleep, he eats all the time, and he has three lungs and isn't afraid to use them."

She laughed. "Izzy was the same way," she informed him. "Now she's an opinionated two-and-a-half-year-old who still doesn't like sleep and eats more than a person her size should be able to."

"Izzy?" he asked with a small smile.

"Isela Miral," she said, and the smile turned sad, and then quizzical.

"I miss your grandmother," he said. "She was a lot of fun." B'Elanna smiled and nodded. "But Miral?" he continued before she could comment on her grandmother. "That's surprising."

"It was too little, too late," she confessed. "I found her on Qo'noS a few months after the _Voyager_ in my universe disappeared, when I was pregnant with Izzy. I had forgiven her for how she raised me. I thought we could have some sort of relationship, but she died a few months after that in a lab accident."

The confusion deepened on Tom's face. "You were raised by your mother?" he asked.

"Your B'Elanna wasn't?" she asked in return. He shook his head.

"She lived on Earth with your—her—father and step-mother," he said. "She spent school holidays on Qo'noS with your mother until she was fifteen, and then they stopped talking. She tried to reconnect after…" his voice trailed off, trying to figure out how to explain that. "That's a long story," he said a second later, "but Miral wouldn't see her. It's been ten years since they spoke."

"John raised her?" she asked, her mind still stuck on that piece of the story. There was a John Torres who had stood up for her, maybe been as good of a father to her as he was to Navi?

"That's how we met," he said. "John and Ananti moved into the neighborhood right before they were married. You were—she was—on Qo'noS and came back a week later. I was twelve."

Which would make her eight. She had literally grown up with Tom, right down the street. She pictured the Parises neighborhood, tried to figure out which house her family would have moved into. "Ananti?" she asked.

"Your step-mother," he explained, and she shook her head again.

"John married T'Pana, when I was about eight," she said, more to herself than him. Apparently John Torres was good for about three years between marriages, in any universe.

"Ananti was B'Elanna's kindergarten teacher," Tom said. "That's how they met."

"And Navi?" He looked at her, confused. "My half-sister," she explained, and he shook his head.

"Her sister's name is Kaia. Deven is their little brother."

"Kaia and Deven," she said, trying out the names.

"I have a holo," he volunteered, getting up to retrieve it. John she recognized, and herself. Ananti was a stunningly beautiful woman with a shy smile and with thick dark hair and deep brown skin, and Kaia and Deven, maybe ten and seven, seemed like a mix of their parents. They all seemed happy, all five of them, and for as weird as it was to see a holo of half-siblings she didn't know, her eyes never strayed far from her own face, from the happiness and lightness she saw there, and she couldn't think of a time in her own life that she felt the way that B'Elanna looked. She had certainly been happy, but... she couldn't explain the difference. She just knew that there was a difference.

And even though it wasn't her universe and she had no intention of staying, she felt a pang of loss that Navi hadn't existed.

"How did we end up here?" she asked, handing the holo back to Tom, not wanting to look at those people any more. "On _Voyager_ ," she elaborated.

He took a deep breath. "That's a really long story," he began.

"We have time before the captain wakes up," she reminded him, and he slowly nodded.

"I don't know where to begin," he confessed, and she gave him a minute to sort out his thoughts. "I crashed a shuttle on Caldik Prime," he finally said. "People died. Friends. _I_ almost died, and the day I was released from Starfleet Medical was the same day as Deven's birthday party. I was sitting on the porch, drinking a beer, when you turned the corner from the transporter station. You had beamed over from the Academy and dragged me to the party. It didn't take much convincing; your dad was manning the grill, and he makes an amazing _carne asada_." He was confusing pronouns, but she didn't correct him, more interested in the story than in making sure it was correct. And John was pretty good at the grill. "We stayed for about an hour, and then beamed over to this bar I know in France." She was sure he was talking about Sandrine's, but again, didn't interrupt. "We had wine, then some more wine, and there's a room over the bar where we stayed the night." She didn't know if she looked surprised at that, but he quickly said, "It wasn't the first time we slept together—that ship sailed years before—but was the first time we spent the night together. We spent the night talking about life and death and doing the right thing. I don't know if she knew I was thinking about falsifying my testimony or not, but she convinced me not to."

He had gotten a slap on the wrist from the inquiry board, and had developed so much anxiety at the helm that he couldn't bring himself to fly. They gave him an assignment in the Ship Loss Investigation Center, investigating crashes during his rehabilitation, and it turned out, he was good at it.

And then a newly-promoted Lt. B'Elanna Torres struck a senior officer while on duty, and instead of getting drummed out of Starfleet, they gave her the option of making it look like she resigned, while going undercover with the Maquis. "I messed up," he confessed. "I accused her of taking the easy way out by leaving Starfleet instead of facing her punishment. She tried to tell me what was happening but couldn't tell me, and I didn't understand what she was saying. And then the _Val Jean_ disappeared and Dad told me everything. I volunteered to fly _Voyager_ on the rescue mission. It was the first time I had piloted a craft—of any size—since the crash, but I had to find her. Even if we all died looking."

He didn't give her an opportunity to say anything before he stood up, taking a still-awake Ben from her arms. "C'mon," he said. "Let's get dressed and go talk to the captain."


	38. 2374

Stardate 51157  
March 2374  
 _U.S.S. Voyager  
_ Delta Quadrant

Lts Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres were on parental leave, so Tom and B'Elanna dressed in civilian clothes instead of uniforms, which suited B'Elanna just fine. She didn't want to get dressed in that old, baggy uniform and didn't even want to look to check to see what her rank was. Or even if she had a real rank or another provisional rank bar.

Captain Janeway was in her ready room and brightened when Tom and B'Elanna entered. Tom immediately thrust Ben into her arms. "Good morning, Benny Bear," she cooed. "Are you being good for your parents?"

"No," Tom grumbled, collapsing into the couch by the viewport. Both B'Elanna and Captain Janeway looked at him with eyebrows raised, then at each other and smiled, and even though B'Elanna hadn't met Janeway until the day before—and that was a different Captain Janeway—she felt a connection to her.

"You said it was urgent," the captain said, now down to business, her eyes going from one lieutenant to the other. Tom gestured for B'Elanna to explain.

"There was some sort of...quantum fissure," she said, not sure how to explain. She handed the tricorder over to the captain. "I belong in an alternate reality."

Captain Janeway shifted Ben in her arms as she accepted the tricorder, the way that mothers learn how to do, even though B'Elanna was pretty sure she didn't have any kids of her own. She studied the tricorder for a minute before nodding. "Okay," she said with a definitive nod. "When did this start?"

B'Elanna blinked in surprise at being believed so readily. "Uh, yesterday, sir," she said. Janeway winced, and B'Elanna quickly explained, "I woke up on a different Voyager, and then was here today."

Janeway turned to Tom. "And our B'Elanna was here yesterday?"

He gave an apologetic shrug. "I'm pretty sure, but it's also possible I've become delusional from so little sleep. She didn't say anything about being in an alternate universe, at least, I don't remember her saying anything, so if she was, it was close enough to this one that she didn't notice."

Janeway turns back to Torres. "Where do you belong?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm a project officer in the Construction Battalion at Utopia Planitia," she said. "I live on Mars Station with my daughter. Tom was a test pilot and was with _Voyager_ for the first mission. The ship disappeared in the Badlands three years ago. They were officially declared dead last year."

Captain Janeway's face crumpled, just for a second, at the words, and then as soon as it was there, it was gone. "And you've been moving through alternate realities for the last two days."

Torres nodded. "This is my second one," she confirmed. "But the Tom on yesterday's _Voyager_ said it had been going on for a week."

Janeway glanced down at the tricorder again, as if it might have the answers they're looking for. "There's no way to say what started it," she said, "but it sounds like the fissure is expanding, drawing in new realities and new B'Elannas each day."

"So how do we stop it?" Torres asked. "And how do we get each of us to the right place?"

"I'm going to need some time to study this," the captain replied, holding up the tricorder. She handed Ben back over to Tom. "I need to talk to B'Elanna for a minute," she said as a dismissal. He nodded and rose.

"I'll meet you back in your quarters," she offered, but he shook his head.

"I'll be in the mess," he said. "We're working on getting this guy a little better socialized to the crew." As if knowing they were talking about him, Ben gave a loud gurgle of excitement. "Yes, we're going to spend some time with more people," Tom said to him as he exited the ready room.

Torres watched him leave before she turned back to Captain Janeway, her eyebrows raised. "Two black coffees," Janeway ordered into the replicator, and Torres' eyebrows raised again. She certainly wasn't going to turn down black coffee, but she preferred raktajino. She wondered if maybe that wasn't true of the B'Elanna Torres who lived there.

Janeway gestured toward the sitting area next to the viewport, and they sat with their coffees. "Tell me about your career," Janeway said conversationally, and Torres took a sip of her coffee while trying to figure out where to begin, and figured she might as well start at the beginning.

"I graduated from the Academy in June of 70," she began. "I was assigned to UP as a research engineer. My first assignment was the implementation of bioneural gel packs to the propulsion system. I was involved in the last phase of that for _Voyager_." She took another sip of her coffee. "After _Voyager_ left, I was transferred to the Theoretical Propulsion Group, but my time there was cut short by medical issues during my pregnancy." There wasn't enough time for that story, and she had just met this woman. "I was at Starfleet Engineering for almost a year before I transferred back to Mars to be with the Construction Battalion as the repair company commander. At the end of my command time, we got a Jem'Hadar ship."

"That's the Dominion, right?" Janeway interrupted. "From the Gamma quadrant?" Torres' eyebrows rose as she did the mental arithmetic; when _Voyager_ disappeared, the Jem'Hadar and the Dominion were still in the Gamma quadrant and not yet considered much of a threat to the Federation. At least, not in her reality. "I was the Chief Science Officer at Starfleet Operations before given _Voyager_ ," she explained. Torres nodded; that made sense.

"I became a project officer with the goal of fixing up the ship, learning everything we could from it about Dominion tech, and preparing it for missions."

"Missions?" Janeway asked.

"We're at war with the Dominion," Torres explained. Janeway looked sad at that news, but gestured for Torres to continue. "We fixed up the ship, took it out, and captured another. Now my team is working on fixing up that one, and I'm finishing my thesis on comparative systems engineering."

"You've accomplished a lot in a short period of time," Janeway observed. Torres shrugged.

"I just try to do the jobs in front of me," she said, and the captain smiled.

"At least we know that that's a B'Elanna Torres trait that's consistent," the captain said. Her smile faded. "You said the _Voyager_ crew has been declared dead," she said, her voice lower. Torres nodded.

"In my reality," she pointed out. "They looked for _Voyager_ for months," she said. "There were a few other ships that disappeared near the Badlands around the same time. Until the end of the Maquis, every Starfleet ship that went near the Badlands included in their report that they didn't find any evidence of _Voyager_ or any other missing ship. Nobody has."

Janeway looked out the viewport for several minutes as she processed this. "Do you know the families of other crew members on _Voyager_?" she finally asked.

"Some," Torres said. "I'm not exactly a social person."

Janeway smiled slightly at that. "Does the name Mark Johnson mean anything to you?"

Torres took a deep breath. "These aren't the same people you know," she pointed out. Janeway nodded and looked at her expectantly. "He was Captain Janeway's fiancé," she finally said.

"Fiancé," Janeway said, almost in disbelief. She shook her head. "We've been married ten years," she said. "We have two daughters, Phoebe and Juliet." She had a framed holo on her desk, which she rose and retrieved. It was definitely Captain Janeway, although her hair was longer, and definitely a version of the Mark Johnson whom Torres had met a few times, and two girls, maybe five and three when it was taken, so now maybe the same ages as the Carey boys, although Torres would be the first to admit that she was terrible at guessing kids' ages and Izzy's rapid development didn't help that. The elder—Phoebe?—had flaming red hair and a confident smile that mirrored her mothers' perfectly. The younger, with her father's dark hair, wasn't looking at the holoimager, her attention focused on the golden retriever in front of her.

"The Mark Johnson in your reality," Janeway asked, almost haltingly. "How is he?"

Torres looked down at her coffee and took a deep breath. She couldn't lie to this captain, not after the kindness she had shown her and the obvious closeness she had to her own B'Elanna Torres. "He got married in December," she said. "I don't know him well, but he seems to be doing well. He still has Molly."

"Molly?"

"Captain Janeway's dog," B'Elanna explained, and Janeway smiled.

"Phoebe named our last dog," she said. "His name's Moppet." Her eyes went back to the viewport, now sad. "I suppose I knew that, as far as the Federation is concerned, we'd be dead," she finally said. "It still hurts to hear."

"It hurts to live it, too," Torres replied softly. "I don't know what happened to the _Voyager_ in my reality. I don't know if they're lost or truly dead, and now I'm more in the middle than I have been since it went first missing." She also looked out at the viewport. They were at warp, but even if they weren't, she knew she wouldn't recognize the stars beyond, so far from her own. "But that uncertainty is my life, Captain, and I have to get back to it."

Captain Janeway nodded and rose, holding out her hand for B'Elanna's empty mug. "Let me take a look at the data and see if I can help," she said. "You have full access to our astrometrics and engineering data. Review everything you need to. I hope someday, you find your _Voyager_."

Janeway walked B'Elanna to the mess hall, where Tom was sitting against a viewport, asleep, while various crew members were passing around and gathering around the infant. The two women again shared a smile at the sight. "You never saw your Tom as a father, have you?" Janeway asked, realizing. Torres shook her head.

"No," she said. "But I knew he'd be a great dad."

"I didn't think I could love Mark more than when I married him," Janeway said. "And then I saw him as a father. I hope you get that chance, B'Elanna."

* * *

She spent the day pouring through the data, much as she had done the day before, trying to memorize everything about this _Voyager_ and their trip to and through the Delta quadrant, hoping to use it someday to find her own _Voyager_. As it had been the day before, Tom rarely left her side, helping her sift through data, the two of them passing Ben back and forth depending on which parent he seemed to prefer in a given moment, and B'Elanna wished it had been two years previous, the baby had been Izzy, and the reality the one she was accustomed to.

"If he's still alive, he misses you," Tom said out of the blue. B'Elanna looked up from the console she was studying in surprise, to find him studying her with an intense expression. "I can't imagine a version of me that would let any version of you go without a fight."

Tom had promised her that during their wedding vows, and while the Tom she had met the day before wasn't in a relationship with the B'Elanna in his reality, she suspected he felt the same way. He said that they both had baggage, that life had taken some detours, but the thing about detours was that you eventually got to your destination, even if it took a little longer. She didn't know exactly what this Tom had had to fight through to get his B'Elanna—a shuttle crash, angry words, Starfleet manipulating her into a mission she had no business being on—but he felt so strongly about the woman who was now his wife that her going missing had gotten him behind the helm again.

This Tom—and the Tom the day before—were different than her husband. Her Tom had led a relatively easy life—his family loved him, he had the best education, got the assignments he wanted, married the woman he loved, had been excited about his pending child before he had disappeared. This Tom had a vulnerability hers didn't, and an openness the one the day before hadn't had, but in all of them, she could tell that what made Tom, Tom was still here. "There's not a version of me that would give up on any version of you," she said. "If he's out there, I'll find him."

He nodded. "I know you will."

On impulse, she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "You have a good thing going here, Paris," she said. "Don't screw it up."

"I don't intend to," he informed her. "But I do have a track record of being incredibly dense sometimes."

She found herself chuckling at that. "I told Tom all the time that I married him for his looks," she confided, and he grinned.

"B'Elanna tells me that at least once a week."

She wanted to tell him so much more, wanted to warn him about post-partum depression and what he should watch out for in his B'Elanna, wanted to explain how it was both fun and frustrating to be responsible for raising a child, but she didn't get the chance. One moment, she was standing there in that Astrometrics lab, and the next, she was in a transporter room in what appeared to be a research facility at Starfleet Headquarters, Owen Paris in front of her with a concerned look on his face. "Owen?" she asked hopefully, and her father-in-law turned expectantly to a science officer standing next to the transporter chief.

"The quantum signature matches," the ensign finally declared. He looked up and smiled at Torres. "Welcome home, sir."


	39. 2374

Stardate 51159  
March 2374  
San Francisco, Earth

 _Welcome home, sir_.

Lt. B'Elanna Torres knew she should have been glad, or at least relieved, to hear those words, but she couldn't get over the sudden and unexpected feeling of loss. "He was there," she said to Owen, hearing her voice crack. "Tom. He was there."

"It wasn't your Tom, B'Elanna," he said gently.

"I know that!" she snapped. But those men had looked like Tom, had sounded like Tom, had been Tom. And they had been alive. Just lost. "He was real, Owen," she said, her voice softened. "It was real. I was on _Voyager_ , and Tom was there, and..." Her eyes widened at the realization that she had been on _Voyager_ , and was now on Earth, but that she had been on Mars, and she didn't know how she had gotten to Earth. Or how an alternate version of her would have dealt with a hyperactive toddler. "Izzy?" she asked sharply.

"At the house," Owen said reassuredly. He glanced up at the chronometer. "Hopefully, asleep."

"I need to see her," she said, now heading for the door, but Owen stopped her.

"Let her sleep," he said gently. "You know she doesn't do that enough."

She wanted to argue, but knew that he was right. Izzy wasn't yet three; she definitely didn't understand quantum mechanics and likely hadn't noticed anything different about her mother over the last few days. Waking her up to assure B'Elanna that she was safe would be counter productive. "In that case, I need to get to an astrometics lab," she said. "I tried to memorize as much about what those _Voyagers_ had been through as I could."

Owen smiled slightly as he led her down the corridor. "I had the other version of you do the same thing this morning," he said. She stopped and looked at him.

"You think he might still be out there, too," she finally said.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But if we don't try..."

They spent the next several hours in the astrometrics lab. It didn't take Torres long to realize that the data she collected from the first _Voyager_ was already in the database; in fact, it had the most information, much more detailed than what she managed to collect in her one day there. That must have been the B'Elanna Torres who had taken her place. She could dwell on that later, but first entered the information she gathered from her second _Voyager_. The one with the Tom who had grown up down the street, with the baby who kept them up, with the John Torres who hadn't given up on his eldest daughter.

It was well past midnight when they returned to the Paris house, but the adults were all still up. "Are you the right person?" Nicki called out from the living room.

"I have an overbearing sister-in-law. Does that sound familiar?" B'Elanna shot back.

"Sydney's right here. You don't have to be rude," Nicki said. Sydney snorted.

"Ha," B'Elanna said.

"Wine or whiskey?" Jason asked as B'Elanna and Owen entered the living room. B'Elanna shook her head.

"I'm going to check on Izzy," she said, turning to head for the stairs.

Izzy was in her usual bed in the grandkid room, surprisingly asleep, considering that the other beds were occupied with cousins and that much excitement was usually not conducive to sleep. B'Elanna spent a minute watching her sleep, thinking about that tiny six-week-old baby she had held just hours before and how tired Tom was. She smiled at the thought. He really was a good father, just like she knew he would be. "Your dad would have been so good with you," she murmured to the sleeping child. "But he would have complained every second along the way." She kissed Izzy on the forehead before rising and heading back to the living room.

"I'll take that whiskey now," she said to Jason, who was more than happy to pour a generous glass.

"Cheers," he said. "I'm happy to let you Starfleet officers do the hopping around to alternate realities. I don't think I could handle it."

"You couldn't, babe," Nicki said cheerfully. B'Elanna snorted.

"You may wear a uniform, Nicki, but your understanding of quantum mechanics leaves a lot to be desired."

"We all have our strengths," she said mildly as she took a sip of her wine. "So do you think it's possible?"

B'Elanna wasn't thrown by the non-sequitor, knowing that Nicki was talking about _Voyager_. "Yes," she said simply. "But it's also possible that the ship really was destroyed. And it's possible that it got transported somewhere completely unrelated, or that they took a different route home. Every possible outcome exists, somewhere. It's just a matter of which possible outcome exists here, in this universe."

"I'm glad my two weeks of Officer training didn't include quantum mechanics," Nicki said. "I'm already confused."

"That's not hard," Sydney replied. B'Elanna smiled at their teasing as swirled the whiskey in her glass.

"Tell us about your trip," Nicki said, and B'Elanna took a sip as she thought about where to begin.

"I think my life here has been pretty easy," she said, and all the adults—even Jens—looked at her in disbelief.

"You're joking, right?" Nicki finally asked. "Your father leaves you, you almost die on a training exercise—"

"Your husband dies. Or disappears," Sydney chimed in.

"You have a complicated pregnancy," Nicki added.

"And you raise your daughter by yourself," Alicia said. "After your mother dies."

"You have a really complicated job that none of us fully understand," Jason contributed.

"I think that says more about you than me," B'Elanna interjected.

"You get sent on an undercover mission with three days' warning and crash on a planet in enemy space," Owen added as if she hadn't spoken.

"Our point, B'Elanna," Nicki said, "is that you haven't had an easy life. It's just that you're strong enough to handle everything life throws at you."

B'Elanna took a sip of her whiskey instead of arguing, because from what she could gather, the alternate versions of her weren't any weaker than she was. They were more alone. The first hadn't had Tom to help her survive the Academy and had tried to find a family in the Maquis, only to get thrown to the Delta quadrant. The second had had a good start, but then was alienated from her family—and Tom—when forced to go on an undercover mission with the Maquis.

Neither of them had Navi, neither had Izzy, neither had Nicki to joke with or Sydney to make her run or Owen to bounce around ideas with or Alicia for her unconditional love.

It had taken her years to understand Tom's lessons about needing other people, and now couldn't understand why that had been such a difficult concept for her to grasp.

* * *

Like they did every time they were on Earth, B'Elanna and Izzy met Navi for lunch. "There are an infinite number of universes where you and Tom are together," the fourteen-year-old declared with excitement after B'Elanna had filled her in on the events of the last few days, her black eyes shining. "Of course, there are also an infinite number of universes where you aren't together, or where you never meet, or where one of you doesn't exist, or both don't exist. None of those infinities is any larger than any other, of course, because infinities—"

"Navi," B'Elanna interrupted. "I've taken a lot more math and theoretical physics courses than you." Even though she had known her sister now for more than seven years, it was still odd talking to her. At fourteen, she looked young and could probably pass for twelve, at least until she opened her mouth. She was far ahead of her peers academically and probably had the mental capacity of someone twice her age, and the juxtaposition of talking about advanced theoretical physics to somebody who looked like she should still be a child was unnerving.

"Did you know that there's a mirror universe, where everyone who's here is supposedly there, but everything is different?" Navi continued, still excited.

" _I_ know that," B'Elanna said, "but how do _you_ know that?"

Navi waved dismissively, as if discussing classified mirror universes wasn't a big deal. "The thing is, that doesn't even make sense," she said. "In that universe, humans are, what, slaves? So how does Dad meet both of our mothers..." Her voice trailed off as a look of horror crossed her face. "Oh, gods. What if he was some sort of sex slave or something?"

"I'm sure slightly-built human engineers are in high sexual demand among both the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance and...wherever a Betazoid/Vulcan hybrid would be in the mirror universe," B'Elanna said dryly. Truth be told, she didn't want to think about the sex life of an alternate John anymore than she cared to think of her parents' sex lives.

"Eww," Navi declared. "Anyway, there was a Betazoid quantum mechanic—or maybe philosopher—quantum philosopher?—Anyway, she had a theory that souls are linked, that there are some people who are together more frequently than one would predict if assortments of people were random in alternate universes, that some souls just find each other. Now, she didn't refer to them as 'souls,' so to speak, because Betazoids—"

"Navi," B'Elanna interrupted again. Her half-sister was taking faster than normal, her words barely making sense, and B'Elanna wasn't any sort of mental health professional, but had gleaned enough from her own mental health issues and from spending time with Navi to know that that wasn't normal and should probably be addressed. But Navi's mother _was_ a mental health professional, so B'Elanna wasn't going to be the one addressing it. "What's with all the Betazoid philosophy?"

"I'm reading up on Betazoid culture," Navi explained. "Mom's sending me off to spend the summer holiday with my grandmother. I've never lived on Betazed before, so I thought I should learn some stuff."

"And you started with quantum philosophy?" Navi just shrugged in response. "Do you want to go to Betazed?"

Navi shrugged again. "Not really," she admitted. "I love my grandmother, but she's really overbearing, and four weeks is a long time to be the only object of her attention. And I should spend the time studying. I have my first round of exams for the Academy next year, after all."

B'Elanna rolled her eyes; she couldn't remember even studying for her first round of Academy entrance exams. Or her second, and only studied for her final entrance exams because study time for them was built into Plebe Summer. "I think you'll be okay," she said dryly.

"If I'm going to be a hybrid neurologist, I need to be better than 'okay,'" Navi protested, and B'Elanna rolled her eyes again.

"The only board-certified hybrid neurologist is your godfather," she pointed out. "Believe me. You have nothing to worry about."

"That's exactly what I have to worry about!" Navi exclaimed. "I don't want people to think I got into the Academy or the Medical Academy or neurology or hybridology training just because my mom's a hybrid psychologist or Moshe Zalun is my godfather. Oh! Can I take Izzy to the San Francisco Symphony tomorrow?"

"You've met Izzy," B'Elanna replied mildly. "I think we can agree that she's not ready for the symphony." They both paused to look at the toddler in question, who at that moment was rolling around in the grass of the park.

"No, they're having a kids' concert," Navi insisted. "It's in the outdoor amphitheater where they can play and everything. Zak—you know, Moshe's husband, he's the primary violinist—told me about it, but I'm worried that if I go without a small child that they'll get the impression I _am_ the small child, and that's not the impression I want to give when I'm hoping to be starting at the Academy in two years."

B'Elanna rolled her eyes again. "I'll ask Sydney and Nicki if either of them is interested in taking their kids," she said, and Navi frowned.

"I can take Izzy without adult supervision," she argued.

"Navi, you're fourteen, and Izzy is a handful. You're not taking my daughter _anywhere_ without adult supervision," B'Elanna said, and when her half-sister rolled her eyes, she got yet another reminder that she was dealing with a teenager. Thinking it was time to close that subject, she asked, "What does John think of you spending a month on Betazed?"

"Oh, he doesn't want me to go," Navi said dismissively. "You know how he is." She winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth. "Sorry," she said automatically. "I've been a bit manic lately, and I tend to speak without thinking when I'm manic."

At least B'Elanna knew that she hadn't been completely off-base when she thought that Navi was acting weird, even for her. "Sounds like you need to see Dr. Bayrote."

"Oh, I'm not seeing Bayrote anymore," Navi said, waving her hand dismissively. "There's a new hybrid psychiatrist. I like her more. She doesn't want me to get the gene therapy."

"It made a big difference for me," B'Elanna said.

"But you're not a telepath," Navi countered. "I need my brain."

"Right," B'Elanna said dryly. "I do just fine without mine."

"That's not what I meant!" Navi protested. "It's hard to explain. Telepathy is a big part of who I am, and I'm just not willing to do anything that might mess with that. But I probably do need to get the mania treated," she admitted.

"Probably before you leave to Betazed and infect a whole planet of telepaths with it," B'Elanna said. Navi rolled her eyes.

"I'm not contagious," she said defensively.

"Are you sure?" B'Elanna asked. "I'm feeling a little on edge just listening to you."

Navi rolled her eyes and took a drink of her water. "Come to dinner," she said abruptly. "You haven't been in a while."

"That's because Izzy and I live on Mars."

"But you're here now," Navi pointed. "And you're going to be leaving for Mars again soon. So, come to dinner. You know Dad likes to see Izzy. And Mom, too, even though every time you guys come to visit she tells me that there's no rush in having kids." Navi rolled her eyes. "Please. I'm fourteen. There are zero plans for having kids in the next decade. Probably two."

"That line of thinking worked out well for me," B'Elanna said dryly. She shook her head at Navi's previous requests. "I don't think so about dinner tonight. I'm not sure I'm ready to face John, knowing there's a John Torres who exists out there who _didn't_ give up on me."

"But then you don't get me," Navi pointed out. "Kaia and Deven," she scoffed. "Who are those people, anyway?"

"They're probably a lot easier to deal with than you when you're manic," B'Elanna pointed out. Navi tilted her head in acknowledgement.

"Okay, you might have a point," she conceded. "I will say, though, of all the possible universes out there and all the possible outcomes, I'm glad we have each other in this one."


	40. 2374

Stardate 51161  
March 2374  
San Francisco, Earth

B'Elanna held firm to her decision not to have dinner with John, choosing instead to burn off too much excess energy by going on a longer and faster than necessary run with Sydney. "If this is what happens when you take two days off, maybe you should try not running the week before Tromsø," Sydney commented after their 25 kilometer run, bent over at the waist as she tried to catch her breath. B'Elanna chuckled.

"I also just had a month off," she reminded her sister-in-law. "I think that was everything I had. There's nothing left for Tromsø."

"Nice try," Sydney replied, straightening up. "Want to grab something to eat?"

"Don't you have some important meeting to go to or something?"

Sydney checked her chronometer. "It's 1800. And Saturday," she pointed out.

"In that case, don't you have kids to feed or something?"

Sydney shrugged. "Jens is here," she pointed out. "I'm giving him some father time."

"Well, I don't have that luxury," B'Elanna replied. "And I spent two days away. I'm going back to your parents' house to spend some time with my daughter."

Sydney sighed. "That makes sense," she agreed. "Let me know if you want another run before you head back to Mars."

B'Elanna beamed over to the closest transporter station to the Paris house, and as she turned the corner to their street, thought of the story another Tom Paris had told her. He had been sitting out on the front porch, drinking a beer on the day he was released from Starfleet Medical after a shuttle crash, and she had seen him and dragged him to her brother's—Deven's—birthday party.

She stopped on the front porch and stared at the two chairs there, trying to remember if she had ever seen anyone sitting there and trying to picture Tom doing so. She had still been at the Academy, so he had been young, either an ensign or a lieutenant, jg. Maybe the same age as her Tom when she had the terrible idea of surprising him at his apartment when she had been on Mars to interview for an engineering course, and had unintentionally interrupted his date.

Strange to think that there was an alternate universe where she didn't stop by his door, didn't see his bewildered expression across the table over coffee as she tried to apologize for being a holy terror when he was her company commander. Where was that B'Elanna now? Had she still talked to Owen late in the evenings during the Survival Strategies course until she was tired enough to fall asleep? Had Owen still commed Tom when she was in a coma? Had Tom still dropped everything to go to Earth to be by her side? Had Tom still asked to be reassigned to San Francisco, still helped her with her recovery, still blurted out that he loved in her in the middle of an argument about pushing herself too hard? Had they gotten married, had Izzy? Had that Tom disappeared with _Voyager_ , too?

That wasn't relevant, she reminded herself, wasn't her reality.

Alicia turned from where she was watching the grandkids playing in the back yard when she heard the door open out onto the deck. "How was your run?" she asked as she gave B'Elanna a hug. She made a face as she pulled away. "You should probably get cleaned up before dinner."

B'Elanna smiled, but before she could make a joke about not being fresh and clean after a 25 km run, Izzy had spotted her. "Mommy!" she squealed, changing directions to launch herself up the three steps onto the deck. B'Elanna intercepted her and pulled her off the ground into her arms.

"I missed you, little monkey," she said as she held Izzy in a hug.

"Miss you, too," Izzy replied automatically. She made the same facial expression Alicia had. "You smell bad."

Both B'Elanna and Alicia laughed at Izzy's characteristic bluntness. "I just went for a run with Aunt Sydney," B'Elanna protested. Izzy frowned, not knowing what to do with that information. "But I guess I can take a shower before dinner."

"Owen's not home yet," Alicia informed her as she set Izzy back down on the ground. She glanced at a chronometer and frowned. "He's been in meetings and didn't know when he'd be back."

"On a Saturday?" B'Elanna asked, and Alicia's expression became almost uncertain.

"It's about _Voyager_ ," she said after a long pause, and B'Elanna understood.

"He wants us to start looking for them," she said. Alicia nodded, then sighed.

"If it was a decade ago, he would have gotten support in seconds," she said. "But because of the war, and the Borg attack, and how depleted the Fleet is from those…" Her voice trailed off, and she gave her daughter-in-law an apologetic look. "It's a bit of a harder sale."

B'Elanna could do the math. _Voyager_ had had a crew of 153. There were billions of individuals in the Federation whose lives depended on the defeat of the Dominion.

At bedtime, Izzy managed to get three stories out of B'Elanna without even trying, and then she stayed there until she felt her small daughter's breathing become rhythmic with sleep. She heard the murmurings of voices, too low to make out words, as she left the grandkid room.

Both Owen and Alicia stopped talking when B'Elanna entered the kitchen. "That good, then," she said.

"Finding _Voyager_ doesn't help us win the war," Owen replied with a sigh, undoubtedly having heard those exact words several times over the course of the day. B'Elanna didn't say anything as she picked up a bottle of whiskey from the liquor cabinet and held it up, eyebrows raised. "I'll get the glasses and ice," he said in response.

For several long minutes, they sat there and sipped their whiskey, and even though they didn't have comfortable chairs, or whiskey, or any sort of climate-controlled environment, it reminded B'Elanna of sitting by the fire during Survival Strategies, her classmates all asleep from exhaustion. First they had just sat, and then he had asked her polite questions about what she was doing her research on, and before she knew it, he had asked how Tom was as a company commander and it seemed that no topic was off-limits.

_"We did one training exercise where we ran up and down Sato Hill. Winner got a pass from early morning PT the next morning," Cadet Torres had said. Admiral Paris chuckled slightly._

_"And I'm guessing you were the first back down," he said._

_"I was," she replied. "I just couldn't believe he thought that was a valid exercise."_

_That time, Admiral Paris laughed out right. "He did that to benefit you," he said. Torres had frowned._

_"It's not like I needed a pass from morning PT," she replied._

_"No, you didn't," Admiral Paris agreed. "You needed a confidence boost."_

_"And why would he give me one?"_

_Paris thought about his answer for a minute. "Tom likes challenges," he finally said. "But only if you don't tell him that you're challenging him. He will find the hardest courses to fly, climb the steepest hikes, or fix up a busted shuttle, just because it's there. But the second you tell him that you want him to do it or that'll it be good for him, he'll refuse."_

_Torres frowned. "Is that why you told him not to take the assignment as a test pilot?"_

_Paris froze. "No," he finally said, his voice low and full of regret. "No, that was a foolish old man who honestly thought that he should—or could—tell his adult son what to do. I'm glad he let me see how wrong I was. Being a test pilot is good for him. Probably because it's the stupidest challenge he could find."_

"What was she like?" B'Elanna asked, breaking the silence.

"She told me to tell you how lucky you are," Owen replied. B'Elanna raised her eyebrows and poured herself another generous glass of whiskey. She didn't feel lucky most days, but then again, she was a respected leader and graduate student, sipping whiskey with an admiral in San Francisco, her daughter upstairs in bed; she wasn't in the Delta quadrant and nobody thought she was dead. "She doesn't have your confidence," Owen continued. "And she's vulnerable in a way that I've never seen you."

"She's more alone," B'Elanna said, and Owen nodded.

"Her father left her, just like yours did," he said. "She never patched things up with her mother. She left the Academy, joined the Maquis, and got sent to the Delta quadrant."

"Her Tom loves her," B'Elanna said. Owen nodded.

"And she loves him, but…"

"But they're different."

Owen nodded again. "She said that her Tom had been kicked out of Starfleet, spent some time as a mercenary, spent a lot of time drunk, spent some time in jail." The 'detours' that Tom had talked about. "He and his father hadn't talked since he was kicked out of Starfleet. I asked her to tell her Tom that I miss my son, and I'm sure that his father feels the same way. There's nothing Tom could have said or done that would make him any less my son."

She took another sip of her whiskey, feeling the warmth on her tongue. "He's tougher than Tom," she said. "No," she amended a second later. "Not necessarily 'tougher.' He's rougher than Tom. He has harsh edges that he hides with a glib sense of humor, but under that, he's Tom. He's a good man, but he has armor."

"So does she," Owen said with a nod. "They'll make a good pair, but one of them might kill the other before they figure out how."


	41. 2377

Stardate 54473  
October 2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager  
_ Alpha Quadrant

With _Voyager_ again moving toward Earth, Captain Janeway called for the usual senior staff meeting at 0800, and Tom Paris couldn't decide if he was more upset about having to set his alarm for 0600 again or for missing out on another trip out on the _Flyer_ with Izzy. Probably the time spent with his daughter, but he certainly wasn't enjoying the early morning wake-up.

It was obvious in the Mess Hall that the crew had figured out that the replicators were no longer rationed; Neelix was trying to look busy, but everyone was going straight for the replicators. Tom came close to taking pity on him, but when he couldn't figure out what Neelix was serving on the first glance, he also changed directions and headed to the replicator.

Izzy and his father were already seated at a table near the viewport when B'Elanna and he joined them. "Looks like Grandpa tried his hand at doing hair today," B'Elanna joked as she gave Izzy a kiss on the top of her head, smoothing back errand curls.

"I did raise two daughters, you know," Owen said mildly. B'Elanna snorted.

"Both with straight, thin hair," she pointed out. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the admiral. "And I can't see Nicki sitting still long enough for you to do her hair. Or Sydney having enough hair for you to worry about."

"Sydney didn't cut her hair short until she was in secondary school," Owen replied. "She used to love listening to my stories while I did her hair." Tom snorted; he couldn't remember this, but it sounded so much like Sydney that he had no problems believing it. "But you're right about Nicki," Owen acknowledged. "I think she stopped letting me do her hair when she got enough hair for me to do."

B'Elanna chuckled. "None of that prepares you to deal with thick, curly hair," she pointed out. "I'll fix your hair after I'm done eating," she said to Izzy.

"But you don't have curly hair, either," Izzy pointed out.

"I have curlier hair than you do, kiddo," B'Elanna said, and Izzy gave her a look that clearly said that she wasn't buying it.

"Looks pretty straight to me," Izzy declared before going back to her breakfast.

"Yes, because I straightened it," B'Elanna said, rolling her eyes. "You've seen holos from when you were a baby."

"I want straight hair, too," Izzy declared. B'Elanna shrugged.

"Okay," she said. "We can do that when we get back home."

"I like your curly hair," Tom protested. He liked B'Elanna's, too. He could still see the way she would push stray curls behind her ear, the way she absently twisted her hair into a bun or a braid as she eyed a piece of machinery or her competition at a track meet. He could still see the way those dark curls looked against his pillow, or the way they felt when he fisted her hair in his hands.

"It's just hair, Tom," B'Elanna scoffed.

"What's the point in changing something that doesn't need changing?" he asked.

"What's the point in arguing about _hair_?" B'Elanna asked in reply. He opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it when he saw both Izzy and his father looking at him curiously. He took another bite of his breakfast. B'Elanna rolled her eyes, Owen smirked and took a drink of his coffee, Izzy looked confused and then seemed to disregard the whole thing.

After eating, B'Elanna quickly and expertly re-braided Izzy's hair, offered to take a break to meet them from lunch, and gave Tom a quick kiss before she headed to engineering, and he remembered that single-minded focus as she got ready to go to work. Nice to know that some things never changed.

Barely two minutes after B'Elanna left, Naomi Wildman came over, an excited expression on her face. "Do you want to come to my quarters to play a game?" she asked Izzy.

"Can I?" Izzy asked Owen.

"Ask your father," Owen replied, nodding over to Tom. Izzy looked embarrassed at the faux pas, her cheeks flushing.

"Can I, Dad?" she asked Tom.

"If it's okay with Ensign Wildman," he replied. Both girls turned their heads toward Sam Wildman, who was standing a few meters away.

"Of course," she replied. She smiled and shrugged. "Now that we're on our way home, I don't have any experiments running. I just have some reports to finish up, and I can easily write those while watching two girls."

"If you need anything, just comm," Tom offered.

The girls took off quickly, as if afraid either set of parents would change their minds. Tom took another bite of his breakfast and looked over at his father.

"It's going to take some getting used to," Owen said, his tone somewhere between apologetic and accepting.

"I know," Tom agreed.

"For both of them," Owen elaborated. "B'Elanna's been Izzy's only parent her entire life. She's not used to asking for input from anyone else."

"I know," Tom repeated.

"You know how independent she is," Owen continued. "And if there's one thing she's proven over the last six and a half years, it's that she doesn't need anybody else. As hard as it is to hear, even you." Tom opened his mouth to argue, but Owen raised his hand to stop him. "B'Elanna and Izzy don't _need_ you, Tom, which means that if they decide to let you stick around, it's because they _want_ you. I think that's even better. And you should be thankful every day that they decide they want you."

"Are you done?" Tom asked. Owen nodded. "I _know_ that," he said, annoyed. "B'Elanna's never needed me. Hell, I spent most of the time we were dating waiting for her to realize that she could do better. And I know she wants me. She didn't give up on me."

"No," Owen agreed. "She didn't." He opened his mouth, then closed it, then looked like he was about to say something he wasn't sure he should say. "B'Elanna's had a remarkable career so far," he finally said.

"I know," Tom replied. "I've read about it since we got the datastream, and since you guys have gotten here, she's told me up through the quantum fissure. We're slowly working our way through six and a half years of B'Elanna Torres in the Alpha quadrant."

"So she told you about that Jem'Hadar ship."

"Which one? She told me they found and repaired a second."

"The first one," Owen confirmed. He got a far away look in his eyes for a second, then snapped back. "I'm guessing she didn't say much about the mission."

"She said they went into Cardassian space, destroyed a facility that made something the Jem'Hadar needed—"

"Ketracel-white," Owen interjected.

"Right," Tom said, "then there was an explosion, they were fired on, had to land, and fought a Jem'Hadar ship before they could take off again. With the second ship."

Owen took a deep breath. "You know how focused B'Elanna gets sometimes? Like nothing exists outside of her lab or engine room?"

"I'm familiar with that," Tom said dryly. He could still remember a number of missed lunches and late dinners because she just wasn't paying attention to the time, and the number of times he had to explain some sort of current event, because she wasn't paying attention to the news.

Owen hesitated again, as if trying to figure out how to explain what he wanted to say. "When they were in the dark matter nebula, they were lost to the outside world," he finally said. "We were receiving their coordinates, and then, nothing. Starbase 375 was able to pick up on signs of an explosion in the area of space the ship was, but we weren't receiving anything from the ship itself. It was like it was gone. The way _Voyager_ was gone." He paused again. "I've been married to your mother for almost my entire Starfleet career," he said. "And in that time, the _only_ time I've lied to her about anything was when B'Elanna was out on that mission. I came home every night and said that we were still monitoring and it was just going to be a little bit longer, because I couldn't think of what it might do to her to know that we lost contact with another ship that carried someone she loved. To B'Elanna, it was a tedious month with about a week of non-stop work and some enemy threats she had to spend a couple of hours thinking about. To me, it was Starfleet taking advantage of an exceptional engineer's sense of duty. And I knew they would do that again and again, for as long as they could, because _I_ had done that again and again, for as long as I could, whenever I found an officer that exceptional. I did the same thing to Captain Janeway when she was a junior officer." He looked like he had to find his train of thought again. "B'Elanna's going to go far in Starfleet," he said a minute later. "I'm pretty sure she knows at this point, but she still denies it. She's more highly decorated than a lot of senior officers."

"You're really not telling me anything I don't already know," Tom said. "What's your point?"

"My point is that she was willing to walk away from that career for you, Thomas," Owen said. "Now, you're my son, and you know I love you. But I've spent a lot more time over the last six and a half years with B'Elanna and Izzy than with you. And, well," he shrugged, "the family has already lived without you for a while. We can do it again if you screw this up."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad," Tom said dryly as he stood up to head to the staff meeting.

"All I'm saying, Tom, is it took a hell of a lot to find you and find a way to bring you back here. Be worth it."


	42. 2374

Stardate 51183  
April 2374  
Mars Station, Mars

Lt. B'Elanna Torres was reading through the astrometrics data from the various B'Elanna Torres' when Lt. Michael Glass knocked against the doorframe of her open office door. "Welcome back to reality," he joked. She really shouldn't have been surprised that he knew about the quantum fissure, given that he was an intelligence officer, but she didn't appreciate people knowing her business.

She frowned as she looked up at him. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

He looked concerned for a second, then grinned. "And they say you don't have a sense of humor," he said.

She snorted, her attention already back on her console. "Nobody says that," she replied. "They're too afraid of me."

"You're not as scary as you like to think," he said as he took a seat across from her desk. "Happy Day of Honor, by the way."

"You're two days late," she replied. It wasn't as if she celebrated Klingon holidays; she only knew the date because Lt. Commander Worf had sent her a message, and she had checked and confirmed that, yes, it had been the Day of Honor.

"Do anything to celebrate?"

She snorted again. "No," she replied. She had started the day on Earth; John had commed to ask if she was going to do anything to celebrate—she supposed after living with her mother's fanatical obsession with Klingon mythology for a decade of marriage that the Klingon calendar might be permanently embedded in his mind—and she assured him that she did not, in fact, celebrate any Klingon holidays. Nicki had offered to replicate some _gagh_ and bloodwine; she pointed out that _gagh_ was still alive and therefore didn't replicate accurately, and she had yet to find a replicated bloodwine that was anywhere near palatable. Besides, _gagh_ was an everyday food; blood pie was the traditional dish on the Day of Honor, and the fact that she knew that made her irrationally angry at her mother.

She had done an hour of _mok'bara_ that morning and had run through a few levels of her Klingon martial arts program after they shuttled back to Mars, so she was counting that as her official Day of Honor celebration.

"I didn't even know you still used this office," Glass said, apparently moving on from topics involving Klingon holidays.

She shrugged. "We had a battalion meeting this morning, so I was already here. And this is the only office space I have to myself." Between her, Glass, the ensigns, and the chiefs, there were seven people who shared the five consoles in the dry dock office. Sometimes, it was just easier to use her own space.

"Working on the thesis?"

She glanced at her console, still displaying the astrometics data from the Delta quadrant. She should have been working on her thesis—a complete technical manual of the Jem'Hadar ship—since Dr. Hospod, the head of comparative systems engineering, had just sent his revisions. She was just having a hard time bringing herself to care. "Something like that," she said.

"When's your trip to Qo'noS?"

"End of June," she replied. The current term at the Technical Academy ended on May 31st, but the trip was scheduled for a month. For as much as she liked to complain about running marathons with Sydney, she really enjoyed it and was looking forward to Tromsø. Or maybe she just didn't want her training to go to waste, but either way, she and Izzy wouldn't be going to Qo'noS until after their trip to Norway. "Maybe by then, I'll have made some promise with the cloak."

"Maybe you should wait to tackle that until you stop burning out replicators," Glass commented. "Cloaks are quite a bit more complicated."

"Every time you say something like that, it reminds me why you switched from engineering to intelligence," she commented. He grinned, but she wasn't joking. "I need your help with something that should be more your speed," she said.

"I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult."

"Take it however you want," she replied. "Your job is to interpret my reports into something Operations can understand. That's what I need your help with."

"Sure," he said with a shrug. "Shoot."

She took a deep breath. She really didn't trust him with this, but didn't know who else to trust. "Convincing Operations that it's worth pursing finding _Voyager_ ," she said. "Admiral Paris tried, but—"

"But looking for one ship in the Delta quadrant when we're at war against an enemy in the Gamma quadrant is hard to justify," he finished for her.

"Right," she said with a sigh. "So what do we give them to make them think that it's a good idea?"

"In other words, how will finding _Voyager_ help us win the war," he said. She nodded. "There's always the obvious: scientific advancement has never led to worse outcomes."

"I'm pretty sure that was Admiral Paris' entire argument."

"They're looking for something more concrete, then," he said. She nodded again, and he thought about it. "We're looking at three different projects," he said a minute later, listing them on his fingers. "Finding _Voyager_ , talking to _Voyager,_ and bringing _Voyager_ home. You can't do number two or three until you do number one." He lapsed back into thought. "Improved knowledge of the Delta quadrant when fighting an enemy in the Gamma quadrant is going to be another hard sale," he finally said.

"Right," Torres said with a sigh. "That falls under the 'better maps are always a good thing' camp."

"Bit of a stretch," Glass agreed. "Don't get me wrong; I love maps, but these aren't the maps we're looking for." He lapsed back into thought. "Your best argument is going to be the communications," he said a minute later. "The Dominion has the best communication network we've ever seen. Can we use that to talk to _Voyager_?"

She snorted. "We don't know where _Voyager_ is," she reminded him.

"Right, aside from that," he said dismissively. "If you knew where _Voyager_ was, and say they're 60,000 light years away in the Delta quadrant, can you use what we've learned about the Dominion communication network to talk to them?"

"You're putting the cart in front of the horse," she argued, stealing from one of Alicia's expressions. "We can't talk to a ship we can't find."

"What if we can use the communications network to find them?"

She rolled her eyes. "A communications network is for communications," she said slowly, as if speaking to a child. "It's not a sensor array."

"Why not?"

"You were an engineering major; you should know the answer to that!"

"Think creatively!"

"I can't change the laws of physics, Glass!"

He grinned at her frustration, then became serious again. "Think about it," he said. "How do you communicate with a ship when you know their approximate, but not exact, location?"

"You don't need an _exact_ location to communicate," she replied, exasperated. "The comm signal isn't a straight line—" She cut herself off, and knew from the triumphant grin on Glass' face that she had stumbled into the point he was trying to make.

Kahless. They could use a communications network to find—and communicate with—a lost ship. _Voyager_.

"You have _Voyager_ 's approximate location," Glass pointed out.

"Within a few _thousand_ light-years," she pointed out in turn. "We don't have any sort of comms system that can send out that broad of a signal."

"Which is where the Dominion's comm network comes into play." He was grinning like a little kid who unintentionally got the right answer on the spelling bee. "With a big enough network, we can cast a wide enough net—"

"The Dominion's comm network isn't _nearly_ big enough," Torres interrupted. "They can communicate with the Gamma quadrant, but only because of the wormhole. Hell, I don't even know if they still _can_ communicate with the Gamma quadrant, since we closed off the wormhole. To get across quadrants without a wormhole—"

"If we could do it now, we wouldn't be having this discussion," Glass said. "You would have already done it. We're talking about this so we can come up with ideas to convince Starfleet Operations that they want to create a team to look into it, and the Dominion's comm network is that key. We need to learn everything we can about that technology to make something like this work, and learning more about that technology will help us defeat the Dominion." He was grinning broadly now, as if he had just solved a complicated puzzle, when in reality, he had put pieces roughly next to each other with no plan on how to join them together. "Write an information paper on how the Dominion communication network works, and I'll write it up in a way that Operations will understand."

"And then?"

"And then, if they like it, you become the expert on Dominion communication systems." He shrugged. "Hell, you're already the expert on Dominion tech. It's not like they're going to give the job to anybody else."


	43. 2374

Stardate 51387  
June 2374  
Tromsø, Norway, Earth

B'Elanna and Izzy stepped out of the transporter station in Tromsø, and B'Elanna immediately looked around in confusion and checked her chronometer.

"Yes, the local time is almost 2200," Sydney commented with a grin from where she had been waiting for them, looking up at the sky. "The sun won't set up here for another month. Welcome to Tromsø."

"Piggy-bag ride!" Izzy demanded of her aunt.

"Izzy, you don't need a piggy-back ride from Aunt Sydney," B'Elanna said with a sigh. "We're going through a phase," she said to Sydney.

"You know what, Izzy?" Sydney said. "I used to give your dad piggy-back rides. Hop on."

"You're not helping," B'Elanna said with another sigh, although she did enjoy the mental image of a pre-teen Sydney giving a toddler Tom a piggy-back ride. Sydney grinned as best she could with Izzy's arms tight around her neck.

"The fun of being an aunt is getting to spoil other people's kids," she said, then winced as Izzy pulled back hard against her neck. "Although now I'm wishing I brought Kajsa. She loves to give piggy-back rides."

"She kicks, too, so have fun with that," B'Elanna said dryly and rolled her eyes.

The marathon started at 2030 the next day, and the combination of the incredibly flat course and actually training for this one—with the exception of the month on the Jem'Hadar ship—B'Elanna and Sydney improved on their time from the Starfleet Marathon, coming in at two hours and forty-five minutes, more than a twelve-minute personal best for B'Elanna. "Gods, you're going to kill me," Sydney complained. She was still on her feet, but bent over at the waist, an expression of pain on her face.

"Me?" B'Elanna asked incredulously. "This was your idea! You're the distance runner!"

"I'm twelve years older than you!"

"Don't give me that," B'Elanna said warningly. "I was there when Ulshanov said distance runners don't hit their peaks until their forties."

"You have an extra lung!" Sydney continued, and B'Elanna wheezed out a laugh.

"You complain almost as much as your brother."

Sydney laughed as she straightened. "C'mon," she said. "It's close to midnight, and we have the Midsummer celebration to get to."

After getting cleaned up—and a hypo of anti-inflammatories for both of them—they headed out to the Midsummer celebration in the Wylands' neighborhood, a large bonfire visible even in the midnight sun, the sounds of Norwegian folk music audible from blocks away. "That's my sister-in-law, Anneliese," Sydney said, nodding toward the stage, where a blond woman was playing the fiddle. "That's a Hardanger fiddle, traditional in Norwegian folk music."

"Mommy!" B'Elanna knew that voice, and prepared herself to intercept Izzy as the toddler-sized projectile headed her way. She lifted Izzy in her arms, which were surprisingly sore from the run. Her daughter was wearing some sort of traditional Norwegian dress, probably one of Kajsa or Stephanie's old outfits, her dark curls braided tightly around her head in a crown.

"Who braided your hair?" B'Elanna asked, amazed that anyone could make her sit still long enough for an elaborate hairstyle.

"Kajsa!" Izzy said excitedly. "An' I saw weindeew! They real!"

A second later, a frantic Kajsa appeared, giving a sigh of relief when she saw Izzy in her mother's arms. "Sorry, B'Elanna," she said. "She got away from me."

"She does that," B'Elanna assured her niece. Like Izzy, Kajsa was wearing some sort of traditional Norwegian dress, her long blond hair in an elaborate braid. "Good job on braiding her hair."

Kajsa beamed at the compliment. "Thanks," she said. "I did Steph's, too." She pointed off toward her sister, whose purple streaks in her platinum hair made geometric designs in her braided crown.

Jens came over and stole Sydney to dance, some teenaged boy came and asked Kajsa to dance, and B'Elanna released Izzy to run around within the confines of the party while she collapsed into a chair next to the bonfire, her legs too sore for much else.

"I am far too old for this," Sydney said about half an hour later, collapsing down into the chair next to her, a wide grin on her face belying her words. She was in a good mood, which was hardly surprising. Sydney was happiest when running or immediately after, and she had been looking forward to getting to spend time with her husband after being separated for more than two months. "Have you eaten? The salmon is great. So is the reindeer sausage. And the lefse. Just don't eat the lutefisk."

"The what?"

"Fermented fish," Sydney explained. B'Elanna made a face.

"And they say Klingon food is bad." Then she made another face. "Even though Klingon food is bad."

Sydney chuckled. She looked ready to say something else, but then a woman tapped her on the shoulder and asked her something in Norwegian, and she replied in kind. "I didn't know you speak Norwegian," B'Elanna commented after the other woman walked away.

"I've been married to Jens for fifteen years," she said, amused. "I was bound to pick up a few things in that time." She smiled. "We used to come here more than San Fran when we were home on leave. Kajsa actually did kindergarten here in Tromsø when we were between ships."

"Then why did you move to San Fran this time?"

Sydney shrugged. "I like being close to work," she said. "And I don't do well when there isn't night. Or day." She paused and took a drink from her beer. "Jens loves this place, and so do the kids. Muriel—my mother-in-law—she's a physicist, studies the magnetosphere, I don't remember if that came up already or not last night—she commed Kajsa every time they could see the aurora over the winter, and Kajsa beamed over to spend hours looking at the sky." She tilted her head back and stared at the sky, as if she could see anything other than the fact that the sun was still out past midnight. "But while this is Jens' place, mine is San Francisco." She took another drink of her beer. "Kajsa got into Tucker," she said, her words coming out in a rush. "So it just makes more sense to be in San Francisco."

Elizabeth Tucker Preparatory Academy, an elite prep school in San Francisco, probably harder to get into than Starfleet Academy, was where Sydney, Nicki, and Tom had all gone for secondary school. B'Elanna thought about the alternate universe she had visited, the one where that B'Elanna Torres had grown up down the street from the Parises, and wondered if that B'Elanna had also gone to Tucker. She wondered if the families were close enough that prep schools and which were the best would be something that they would discuss. "That's great," she said. "She must be excited."

Sydney beamed in that proud way parents do. "She is," she confirmed. "They have a great Parrises Squares team, and she's been training for try-outs." She glanced over at B'Elanna. "What about Navi? What secondary school is she going to?"

"She's already halfway through secondary school," she reminded Sydney. Navi was in the Federation School System, not the Earth School System, and the curriculum was more individualized and geared toward non-human students. Kajsa and Stephanie could have stayed in the Federation School System when they moved back to Earth, thanks to their years of schooling in space, but Sydney and Jens thought the Earth system and the extracurriculars they could do would be good for them. Kajsa lived and breathed Parrises Squares, and Stephanie was involved in every musical and theater extracurricular she could find. If they were still on Mars when kindergarten rolled around, Izzy would be in the Federation School System by default; if they moved back to Earth, she'd probably go through the testing to find out which system would be better for her.

"How's your thesis coming?" Sydney asked abruptly, and B'Elanna wasn't sure if she was genuinely curious or if she wanted to distract from any envious feelings about fourteen-year-olds who were more advanced than her fourteen-year-old.

The truth was, her thesis wasn't coming well, because it wasn't coming at all. She had made the corrections Dr. Hospod had suggested, but it had taken her weeks, and hadn't even looked at it since, despite more suggestions coming in from her other advisors. She knew she needed to work on it, needed to get a working draft before she went to to Qo'noS to conduct training, but she had a hard time bringing herself to care. "It's coming," she lied.

She had been too focused on learning anything and everything she could about the Dominion communication network to care about a technical manual of a ship.

Lt. Glass had submitted his report to Starfleet Ops a week after Torres had gotten him her summary of how their network worked; Ops had acknowledged receipt, but didn't say anything further about whether or not they wanted anyone to pursue it. They had given Owen a stellar cartographer and two astrophysicists to sift through the data from the alternate universes, in efforts of building maps of the Delta quadrants, but that was as far as they would go into any search for Voyager. Not while there was a war going on and resources were needed elsewhere.

B'Elanna's eyes went up to the sky, like Sydney's had, and then to the musicians on the low stage. Jens' sister was still playing her fiddle, and now Jens and Stephanie had joined the group, singing the words to the Norwegian folk song. Jens, who was usually so stoic and stiff, had a surprisingly good singing voice and was smiling proudly at his younger daughter, who was beaming over at him, so obviously pleased at being able to perform.

If Tom was out there, he deserved to have those moments with his daughter. Izzy deserved to have those moments with him, and B'Elanna wanted to witness them. And she couldn't bring herself to care about writing a technical manual while that possibility existed.


	44. 2374

Stardate 51401  
June 2374  
First City, Qo'noS

Izzy was almost too big to carry on her mother's hip, but B'Elanna wasn't willing to have Izzy loose in an unfamiliar environment, and the transporter station in First City was certainly an unfamiliar environment for an almost-three-year-old who had never left the Sol system. "I wanna walk!" Izzy protested.

"Izzy, you won't walk. You'll run, and you'll get lost," B'Elanna said patiently, knowing that Izzy was far too young for reasoning. "After we get checked into the hotel, we'll go for a walk, okay?" She didn't get a reply from the pre-schooler, which was often as close as she got to assent.

"Lt. Torres." She looked up from Izzy to see a tall man in a Klingon Defense Force uniform. "I am Lt. Orak of the Klingon Defense Force Engineering Academy. I am your liaison while you are on Qo'noS."

"Why does everyone think I always need liaisons?" Torres muttered. She adjusted Izzy on her hip. "This is Izzy Paris."

"Hi," Izzy greeted cheerfully, her grumpiness of a minute ago forgotten.

"Hello," Lt. Orak greeted her with a nod. "Welcome to Qo'noS. My daughter is about your size. I can arrange a meeting for you tomorrow, if you would like."

Izzy turned to her mother, her eyes wide with excitement, and B'Elanna smiled at her, even as she wondered how that would go. Izzy had never seen a Klingon child, and B'Elanna doubted Lt. Orak's daughter had ever seen a part-Klingon child, and the two might treat each other as oddities that couldn't be understood. Her experiences with Klingon children when she was on Qo'noS as a child were far from positive. Then again, there were few things Izzy enjoyed more than spending time with people her own size, regardless of what they looked like or where they came from. "I'm sure Izzy would love that," Torres finally said to Orak. He nodded his approval, looking almost pleased, and Torres reminded herself that for all the negative impressions she had of Klingons, parenthood was respected, valued, and taken seriously in Klingon culture.

"Colonel K'Goho would be honored to have you and your daughter dine with her family tonight," Orak continued.

"Out of the frying pan and into the fire," Torres muttered. All of a sudden, it was like she was a kid again, arriving on Qo'noS from Kessik IV with her mother after John had left. She couldn't remember how long they had lived there—more than a few months, less than a year—but could remember how overwhelmed she had felt the whole time and how Miral had scolded her and criticized everything she had done, eventually enrolling her in classes at a monastery to teach her honor and discipline in hopes that she would finally learn how to act in social settings.

She hadn't liked Kessik IV, but could still remember her relief at going back. Even though, to this day, she didn't know why they went back.

"We would be honored," she replied, swallowing down the hesitation and the desire to just go to the hotel and stay there until it was time to begin teaching, isolating her and Izzy from everything that currently surrounded them.

Isolation. It was her default, and that small little extrovert she was holding was usually the only thing that kept her from it.

"She will send someone for you this evening," Orak replied with a nod. "She had been an associate of your mother. I am sure you will have much to discuss." Torres doubted it, but kept that to herself.

To her pleasant surprise, the dinner went well. Izzy was quite a bit more talkative than Klingon children usually were, but she tried almost all the food and didn't complain about any of it. Colonel K'Goho was the head of the Engineering Academy; turned out, teaching Klingon engineering recruits was very similar to teaching Starfleet mechanic students, and the two shared stories of some of the more entertaining situations their students had found themselves in.

Lt. Orak brought his wife and daughter, Otsis, the next morning when he came to the hotel before showing her the Engineering Academy and her teaching space. Torres watched the introduction between Otsis and Izzy with a little concern and a little skepticism. "Hi!" Izzy greeted happily. Otsis didn't respond, but did smile back at her. Izzy tilted her head to the side as she studied the other girl, and then with the lack of boundaries that came from being three years old—in a few days—she reached forward and touched Otsis' forehead cautiously. B'Elanna flinched, but didn't say anything, and then Otsis did the same on Izzy's forehead. She wasn't sure if Otsis thought that maybe it was some sort of greeting, but the two girls smiled at each other and then both began chatting to the other. In languages the other didn't speak, but neither seemed to even notice, and B'Elanna felt her tension go down a notch.

Since they didn't have a Jem'Hadar ship on Qo'noS, the teaching space was an instruction holosuite at the Engineering Academy. The holoprogrammers at Jupiter Station had created an entire holographic ship, down to every last relay and juncture, and everything projected as planned in the Engineering Academy's training suite.

Torres had shown now several dozen people how to run and repair key systems of the Jem'Hadar ship, but this was the first time she was responsible for teaching a class that would cover all the engineering aspects of it, and despite her reservations, it went well. Just as her conversations with Colonel K'Goho had implied, engineering students were the same regardless of what uniforms they wore. Torres had been ready to argue and defend herself if any of the officers or students had given her any attitude about her mongrel status; there had been some hesitation on the first day, but there was no way to know if that had anything to do with her bloodline, her Starfleet uniform, or the fact that she was teaching in Federation Standard and using a universal translator. After that, they had been completely respectful. Well, as completely respectful as one could expect from officers and mechanics in the Klingon Defense Force. They certainly kept it entertaining.

Teaching took up ten of the 26 hours of the day, five of the six days in a Klingon week. There was a day care at the Engineering Academy that Otsis went to for a few hours a day; Izzy was more than happy to join her and the other kids in the morning, and Rad'enn, Lt. Orak's wife, was more than happy to take Izzy as well when she picked up Otsis. Torres picked up Izzy from Orak and Rad'enn's house after class, often staying for dinner. In their free time, B'Elanna and Izzy explored Qo'noS—the mountains, the caves, the giant ocean, the Sea of Gatan—the places B'Elanna remembered Miral showing her when she was a child. Except for that monastery. She felt no need to go back there.

She remembered hating those months on Qo'noS, hated everything about the planet and the people who lived there, saw it as everything that was wrong with her, everything that made her father leave. She had been concerned about bringing Izzy to a place that she associated with so many negative feelings, but just like always, Izzy made everything new again. Her eyes widened with every new sight and she greeted everyone with a bright smile, just like always. And between her mornings in daycare and her afternoons playing with Otsis as Rad'enn taught opera, B'Elanna was pretty sure that Izzy knew more Klingon than she did.

She taught ten hours a day, she entertained her daughter for another six or so, she went running, she slept longer than she usually did at home, she worked through the equations to try to understand how to get the Dominion communications network to serve as a homing beacon for ships on the opposite side of the galaxy, and somehow, despite the fact that she was using it to teach her classes, she couldn't find any time to work on her thesis.

Torres avoided reading her comms from Winters or her advisors while she was on Qo'noS, so she wasn't terribly surprised to find over a dozen messages asking for progress reports when she finally opened them on the _Thunderchild_ , which had swung by Qo'noS to pick them up on its way back to UP for routine repairs. She looked up from the PADD to watch Izzy singing something that sounded like it was trying to be Klingon opera to the stuffed targ Otsis had given her when they left—Izzy had given Otsis a Flotter in return—and smiled. Her daughter had inherited her inability to carry a tune, although Tom hadn't exactly contributed a wealth in that regard, either. Tone deafness aside, learning and speaking Klingon had really improved Izzy's annunciation over the last month, now sounding more like the four- or five-year-old she resembled and less like the three-year-old she was.

Her smile turned sad as she watched Izzy sing to that stuffed targ. She remembered the looks on both Jens' and Stephanie's faces as they sang at the Midsummer celebration back in Tromsø. Stephanie was a born performer; B'Elanna doubted she had had a tone-deaf moment in her life, but it wasn't Izzy's lack of singing abilities that she regretted. It was the lack of those father-daughter moments.

And just like she felt watching Jens and Stephanie back in Tromsø: if there was a chance, no matter how remote, that Tom was still out there, that she could find him and bring him home, that they could have those father-daughter moments, how did anything else matter?


	45. 2374

Stardate 51487  
July 2374  
Mars Station, Mars

B'Elanna and Izzy had barely been back on Mars for two hours when she received a comm from Commander Winters asking her come in. She was going to activate the holonanny, but Izzy was excited to see her friends at daycare, even for just an hour or however long the meeting would take, so they both headed over the Station.

Commander Winters glanced up from his computer console when Lt. Torres entered his office. "Have you finished your thesis yet?" he asked without preamble.

"I just got back from Qo'noS, sir," she said, exasperated.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Welcome back, Lieutenant. How was Qo'noS?"

"Hot and humid. It was great, sir," she replied.

"Good. Now. Have you finished your thesis yet?"

"I was a little busy, sir," she replied. "You know, teaching a society's engineers about completely new tech."

He rolled his eyes and sighed. "You write a technical manual for an entire ship—a ship filled with technology that nobody in this quadrant has seen—in ten months, and now five months later, we can't get you to complete comparatively minor revisions." He frowned, leaning forward. "What's going on, Torres?"

"I've had the classes at the Tech Academy, and then this trip to Qo'noS, and between the replicator and cloak—"

"This isn't like you, B'Elanna," he interrupted, and she flushed at the insinuation. "I have never heard you make excuses before. If anything is going on—"

"There's nothing going on, sir," she interrupted. "It's just been busy lately. I'm sure I'll have the revisions done soon."

"You said that two months ago," he said with a sigh. He studied her, the moment become increasingly uncomfortable as it became increasing obvious that he was going to ask a personal question. They were engineers; they didn't discuss personal matters unless they absolutely had to. He sighed again. "You were supposed to go to Qo'noS in mid-May, right after the semester at the Tech Academy ended, and asked to delay so you could work on the cloak and train for your marathon."

"I got the cloak to work," she interjected.

"You got the cloak to work," he conceded, "but then haven't included anything about the cloak into the technical manual, despite the fact that you got the cloak to work a month before you left for Qo'noS and wrote very detailed instructions to Chief O'Brien on how to install a Klingon cloaking device on the other Jem'Hadar ship. And I know you weren't working 24 hours—or however many hours Qo'noS has—a day while you were there."

"You're right, sir," she said dryly. "I was also taking care of a preschooler."

He gave her a look. "You were the one who wanted to take Izzy to Qo'noS. And you haven't used being a single parent as an excuse for anything in three years. You've been able to do everything Starfleet has asked of you and more."

She frowned at that. Starfleet had asked _a lot_ of her over the years, and Izzy demanded even more, and she couldn't understand why he didn't get that there was only so much of that that any one person could give, and maybe three years was about her limit. But she didn't say any of that, because she hadn't reached her limit. She wasn't even excessively tired most of the time.

And she was making excuses.

Winters sighed again. "I'm concerned about you," he finally said. "I don't know what's going on, and I can't order you to talk to a counselor—"

"I'm fine, sir," she interrupted.

"Please, B'Elanna."

She sighed. "Yes, sir," she said, not completely sure what she was agreeing to. He nodded his dismissal.

She stepped out into the corridor and sighed again. "Shit," she muttered. She pulled out her PADD and sent a quick message. She was completely unsurprised that she got a prompt reply, and headed down the corridor.

"Hey, Amartey," she greeted as she stuck her head in his office. "I need a lab."

"When?" her fellow project officer asked.

"Now. For about an hour. Probably less."

He tapped a few controls. "Two is free," he said. "It's all yours. How was Qo'noS?"

"Hot. Thanks, Kwasi." She left his office and strode down the corridor without another word.

She tapped the entry code for Hololab 2, and then once inside, activated the holographic communicator. A minute later, Dr. Bayrote appeared in front of her. "Don't you have other patients?" she asked as a greeting. "How are you always available every time I comm?"

"I learned a long time ago that when you say you're ready to talk, I should grab the opportunity while I can," the hybrid psychiatrist replied. "And it's after 2100 here."

She flinched and glanced at her chronometer, even though it wasn't set for Earth time. "Sorry to disturb you after hours."

He waved dismissively. "I'm guessing this about your thesis."

"Why does everybody know all of my business?" she asked, exasperated. She paced the small hololab while the holographic Bayrote watched from his holographic chair. She wondered what he saw in his office; the pacing was hardly unusual, but she had no idea if her hologram was pacing through furniture or not. It being after hours, he could have been at home. For all she knew, she was pacing through his dining room table.

"Your advisor asked for my opinion," he admitted. "I asked if it was an official fitness for duty evaluation. He said no, so I declined to offer one." She smiled at that. It was nice to know that there were still some people on her side. "I've never been consulted about your academics before."

"That's not true," she was quick to point out. "We met because you had to do a fitness for duty after I started a fight in Astrotheory 101."

He laughed at the memory. "That's true," he conceded. "Your temper aside, though, you've never had problems academically."

"I don't think it's an academic problem," she said. "I think it's a concentration problem." She crossed her arms over her chest as she tried to figure out how to say what she was thinking. "Ever since the quantum fissure, I can't stop thinking about _Voyager_. About Tom," she amended. It had taken him months after Tom disappeared to get her to stop saying _Voyager_ when she meant Tom, to stop talking about _Voyager_ disappearing when she meant Tom disappearing. "I can't get over the feeling that he's alive and out there somewhere, and I can't stop trying to figure out how to find him." She told him the whole story, about the proposal to use the Dominion communication network to find _Voyager_ and talk to them, how they acknowledged receipt and never gave them a determination, how she had been working on it anyway instead of finishing her thesis, how she couldn't bring herself to care about Jem'Hadar technical manuals when there was the possibility that she could speak to her husband again.

"Discipline has never been a problem for you before," Dr. Bayrote said when she finished. "You're probably the most disciplined officer I've ever worked with." She snorted at that idea, and he smiled, probably knowing what she was thinking. But while she still had problems with authority figures and following orders she didn't see the point of, she was disciplined in other ways. Motivation faded, but discipline didn't, and it was her discipline that got her out of bed early in the mornings to go running, that kept her trying to solve problems like integrating that cloaking device into the Jem'Hadar ship, that kept her moving forward when everything seemed to be trying to hold her back. "I want to rule out anything medical before we assume this is entirely psychological," Bayrote continued. "When can you come to San Francisco for an evaluation?"

She groaned. "Can't you just tell the clinic here what scans you need?" she asked.

"And how well has that worked out for you in the past?" he asked in reply, and she groaned again, knowing he was right. They'd tried it a few times, but the clinic managed to mess up the requested scans each time and she still had to back to Starfleet Medical to have them done properly, leaving her annoyed that she had wasted an hour in the clinic for nothing, to still have to go back to Earth to have the scans repeated. "I believe Izzy is a few weeks overdue for her annual exam. For that matter, so are you." She groaned again; she hated the annual physicals, hated having to spend the hours it took for each of the specialists to finish poking and prodding her as if she was some sort of science experiment, and hated that she had to put Izzy through it, although Izzy didn't seem to mind as much. "It's not as if you have anything pressing that has to be done on Mars," he pointed out. He was right; both ships were out on missions and permanently docked at DS9. The few officers and mechanics they still had on UP dedicated to the Jem'Hadar ships had been working off holoprograms and simulators when trying to get the replicators or viewscreens to properly install.

"I can probably get away this weekend," she admitted.

"I'll see you then," he promised. "Until I see you," he added, "more writing. Less daydreaming. Consider it an order, Lieutenant."

She smiled at his attempt to be stern. "Aye, sir," she said before deactivating the holocommunicator. "More writing, less daydreaming," she murmured to herself.

She wasn't sure if that was going to be possible.


	46. 2374

Stardate 51495  
August 2374  
San Francisco, Earth

B'Elanna Torres was standing at the Paris' replicator when the front door opened suddenly, Nicki Sanders standing there, holding a very large mug of coffee. "I thought we were meeting you at Starfleet Medical," B'Elanna said as a greeting.

"I'm your designated escort," Nicki said. "To make sure you actually make it to Starfleet Medical."

"I know the way there, thanks."

"You have a bit of reputation for not showing up to appointments," Nicki replied. "A reputation you've earned, I might add."

B'Elanna shrugged a shoulder; there was no point in arguing that. She took her raktajino from the replicator. "Izzy!" she called out. "Aunt Nicki is here!"

The girl made a lot more noise descending stairs than anyone her size should have. "Aunt Nicki!" she exclaimed. "Piggy-back ride!"

Nicki chuckled and took a sip of her coffee. "Oh, no," she said. "You may be my favorite Paris-ite, but I need to be able to drink my coffee as we walk. It's going to be a long day, and your cousin Tommy is a tiny little asshole who didn't let me get any sleep last night."

B'Elanna smirked. "I told you that was a distinct possibility when you wanted to name him that."

"You'd think I would have known better," Nicki sighed. "To be fair, his sister and brothers aren't any better. Okay. Let's go. It _is_ going to be a long day."

The long day started in Dr. Bayrote's office, where he completed the scans he mentioned during their conversation. "My turn!" Izzy declared. B'Elanna sighed at the fact that Izzy had already figured out the pattern of 'scan Mom, scan Izzy.' She didn't say anything, though, because her being excited and eager to submit to the endless scans would make the day a lot easier. Dr. Bayrote chuckled and turned his attention to Izzy.

"I suppose I can save Dr. Waslet the trouble," he said.

"Who?" Torres asked.

"Stiana Waslet," Dr. Bayrote said. "She's the new pediatric hybrid psychiatrist. I thought you knew that; Navi started seeing her about eight months ago."

"How many psychiatrists does this department need?" Torres asked. "There's one cardiologist, one endocrinologist, one neurologist, one pediatrician, two gynecologists, and, what, ten psychiatrists?"

"Two psychiatrists, three psychologists, and three counselors," Bayrote corrected.

" _Why?_ "

"Because you hybrids have complicated mental health issues," he said with a smile. "All done, Miss Paris," he said to Izzy. Turning back to Torres, he said, "I'll analyze these before you come back this afternoon. And I'll send Izzy's scans over to Dr. Waslet. She has her evaluation scheduled for 1400."

"Baby's first head shrinking," Torres muttered. Dr. Bayrote smiled.

B'Elanna only had a few doctors to see, but since Izzy was still developing—Nicki's term; B'Elanna preferred 'growing'—she had a more complicated schedule, about half of which they finished by lunch. They resumed their appointments at 1300 with orthopedics, and even though they still had hours to go, Torres was already on edge. "Who are you?" Torres asked sharply as they entered the exam room, expecting to see Dr. Storga, the hybrid orthopedist she had been seeing since she was a cadet, and instead seeing a tall Vulcan in a teal uniform.

"I am Dr. Skath," he announced, raising an eyebrow. "I am an orthopedics resident and will be examining you today."

"Where's Dr. Storga?" Torres asked. Dr. Skath raised that eyebrow again.

"I am fully aware of your orthopedic history," he said. As if on cue, the door slid open, revealing the lanky commander.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, but didn't address the reason for his tardiness. "Always good to see you, B'Elanna."

"You sent in a resident?" she asked sharply.

"You're always a good learning case," Dr. Storga said. "It isn't often we get to see Klingon/human athletes in clinic."

"I'm not an athlete anymore," she replied.

"I think your marathon finishes would beg to differ. Dr. Skath, feel free to examine your patient."

Torres glared at Storga before turning her attention to the Vulcan physician. "Are you experiencing any musculoskeletal pain?" Dr. Skath asked.

"No," Torres replied.

"I'm pretty sure that's not true," Dr. Storga interjected. "This will go faster if you just cooperate."

She glared at him again, feeling like a child being scolded by a parent, but knowing he was right, sighed and turned back to Dr. Skath. "Right ankle, right hip. And left shoulder. That one's new."

Skath scanned the offending joints, his eyebrows rising as he did so, and Torres smirked, now wondering just how much of her orthopedic history he had read. "You have a tear in your rotator cuff in your shoulder," he finally said. "And some apparent calcifications in the ligaments of your right ankle, knee, and hip."

"Running, running, and… bat'leth?" Dr. Storga asked, pointing at her ankle, hip, and shoulder in turn. Torres nodded and Dr. Storga smiled, and then turned to Dr. Skath.

"Human connective tissue weakens with strain," he explained. "Instability begets more instability. Klingons, on the other hand, tighten and become stiff in attempt to stabilize the instability. I'll explain the physiology later. Lt. Torres is a competitive runner and has been since childhood, and I've told her several times that if she doesn't do better on her stretching and her physical therapy exercises, she's not going to be able to ambulate by the time she's thirty, the way she abuses her joints. Let me show you how we've been treating the calcifications, and then I'll let you treat her shoulder." He grabbed the tissue regenerator and began, and then turned back to Torres. "I want you to see Mileham before you head out today," he said to her. "Dr. Skath, anything else you would like to advise your patient?"

"Perhaps it would be prudent to cut down on the running," Skath said. Torres stared at him for a second, and then turned to Dr. Storga.

"He's new," he told her, then turned back to his resident. "That's not going to happen. Lt. Torres is a record-holding decathlete who has switched to distance running for unknown reasons."

"Sister-in-law reasons," Torres interjected. Storga nodded at that.

"She's not going to stop running, no matter what you tell her," he concluded to Dr. Skath.

"Curious," Dr. Skath replied, "that she would rather risk permanent injury than give up on a hobby."

Torres hated it when doctors talked about her as if she wasn't in the room. "That hobby keeps me sane. It keeps me from being an unpleasant person to be around," Torres informed him. "It's your job to make sure I can keep doing it."

"I did not realize orthopedics would require so much…psychology," Dr. Skath said, raising an eyebrow.

"Just wait until you do your sports rotation," Dr. Storga said with a slight roll of his eyes. He turned to Izzy. "Miss Paris. Do you want to play a game?"

"Yes!" Izzy said excitedly.

"Do you know how to play Simon Says?" She did, and he used the game to get her to move her limbs in a variety of ways, watching carefully. "Simon says, touch your toes," Dr. Storga said. She did obediently, and he used the opportunity to examine her spine. "No evidence of scoliosis," he said, now to Torres. "Her spine is developing normally. Your scoliosis was congenital, but in humans, it develops between the ages of ten and twenty. She didn't inherit your spinal disorder, but we'll be keeping an eye on it for a while just to be sure." Torres nodded; she couldn't remember her own spinal surgery, since she was only an infant, but she still felt a sense of relief every time Dr. Storga said that Izzy's spine was fine.

He turned back to Izzy. "Do you like sports, Miss Paris?"

She brightened. "Soccer!" she said excitedly. "And _qa'vak_!" Storga turned to Torres, eyebrows raised.

"Nicki's kids play soccer," she explained. "Ainsley and Christopher sometimes kick the ball around with Izzy. And _qa'vak_ is a Klingon game. She learned on Qo'noS."

He nodded his understanding. "I bet you're a really fast runner," Dr. Storga said. "Are you faster than your mom?"

She giggled. "No!" she exclaimed.

"Are you sure? Let's go out in the hallway so you can show me how fast you can run."

Izzy loved running but was rarely allowed to do it inside, so she was excited about the prospect of running down the hallway. Dr. Storga watched her carefully as she did so. "Kids are so natural when they run," he murmured, watching carefully. "She's doing something funny with her left leg," he said a minute later. "It might just be something she's doing, but I want Mileham to take a look at it, maybe teach her some exercises to make sure her muscles develop right. Thank you, Miss Paris," he said to Izzy. She came over to them and grinned. "You're very fast," he said. "Later today, your mom is going to take to you meet Commander Mileham. He's going to teach you some games so you can learn how to run as your mom someday."

Izzy looked from him to Torres, her eyes wide. "Not 'til I'm big," she finally decided, and it took Torres a second to realize that she was saying she wouldn't be as fast as her until she was older.

"How big?" Torres asked, and Izzy had to think about that.

"Five," she finally declared, and Torres laughed.

"Keep dreaming, kiddo," she said.

An hour later, she had to admit that Dr. Waslet was really good with kids. B'Elanna still wasn't thrilled with the idea that her pre-schooler was seeing a psychiatrist, but when thinking about her own turbulent childhood, she had to admit that maybe it wasn't the worst idea Starfleet Medical had come up with.

After Izzy's session with Dr. Waslet, they swung by the Physical Therapy department, which was busier than Torres had ever seen it, filled with officers and crewmen injured during the war and working on rehabbing their injuries. She felt silly taking Commander Mileham's time when he should have been helping them, but he waived her objections aside. "Even when you're completely healthy and just here because Storga micromanages, you're still my most interesting patient," he confided. He had said that countless times five and a half years before, when she was struggling through her rehab after her coma and learning how to walk, and then run, again. He had been a young lieutenant commander back then, already with a doctorate in physical therapy and working on his Ph.D. in comparative anatomy. "Let's see what has Storga worried."

He had her run in the gait analysis at various paces, and then quickly studied the data, shrugging a shoulder dismissively. "Same thing as always," he said. "Your history of running in the same direction around a track did its job on your gait. Are you still doing _mok'bara_?" She nodded. "And yoga?"

"Not as often as I should," she admitted.

"Of course not," he muttered. "Three times a week, do half an hour of _mok'bara_ and then ten minutes of yoga. Even you can manage ten minutes three times a week. I'll send you the poses I want you to do. And do those stretches after every time you run. It's only three minutes. I'd rather you cut your run short by three minutes and do the stretches if you're concerned about time. Now, he wanted me to watch Izzy run, too, right?"

They put Izzy in the gait analysis. She wasn't quite sure about running in that space, but seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly. "Ah, I see what he saw," Mileham said. He pointed to her left knee on the display in front of them. "Klingon skeletons are different than human skeletons—more bones, denser bones, stronger joints—and the musculature is different as well. Both you and Izzy have largely Klingon bone structures, including an auxiliary femur. I really need to find out what the Klingon word is for this bone; I just call it the femula." He pointed to the thinner bone that ran alongside the femur. "Because of the extra bones, the Klingon knee works differently than the human knee. What I'm looking at here is some weakness in the in the cross connections in the knee, the left more pronounced than the right." He shrugged. "Easy enough to strengthen. Izzy, let me show you some games that you can play with your mom that will make you run really fast."

He walked them through the various exercises to strengthen the deficits he noted, and B'Elanna smiled slightly at the attention everyone was giving her three-year-old. "I wonder how fast I would have been if I had a dedicated team of orthopedists and physical therapists starting when I was three," she commented.

"Third best decathlete in the Federation is nothing to scoff at," Mileham commented. "I think you did okay without it." She smiled slightly and had to nod in acknowledgement.

After physical therapy, B'Elanna left Izzy with Nicki to go for a walk, and then headed over to Dr. Bayrote's office for her own psychiatric evaluation. "Your neurotransmitters are a little off from your baseline, which is why you've been experiencing anxiety," Dr. Bayrote informed her. "I don't think it's far enough off that I'm going to encourage treatment, but I can give you some medication if you like."

"The gene therapy?" she asked, and he shook his head.

"Unrelated," he said. "Neurotransmitters go up and down. That's why we have moods. Your gene therapy was to address the fact that you didn't have the glutamate receptors in the right places and that was manifesting as depression. Your receptors are fine, but you're producing more norepinephrine than you're used to. Which is probably because you have yourself worked up about finding _Voyager_. Do you want to talk about it?"

Well, that was his job, so she did. She didn't even realize until she started talking that she was worried that if they didn't find _Voyager_ soon, their window would close, that something would happen to the ship and it would deviate from the likely paths that they thought it could take, based on the data she and the other B'Elanna Torres had collected, and they wouldn't know where to look. That they only had one shot at this, and she wasn't allowed to take it.

She didn't even know if _Voyager_ was still out there, if Tom was still alive, and she had let herself get worked up about not searching for a needle in a galactic haystack fast enough.

She went back to Nicki's office to collect Izzy and head back to the Paris house, but Dr. Gault found her just as Nicki's office door slid open. "Trying to sneak out without seeing me?" he asked.

"That was the goal," Torres replied.

"This is why you have a reputation," Nicki said to her sister-in-law from inside her office. "I'll keep Izzy entertained."

They headed down the corridor to his office, and instead of sitting, Torres stood in the middle of the room and crossed her arms. "How's your sex life?" Dr. Gault asked as soon as the door was closed, and Torres couldn't help the bark of laughter that escaped.

"Do you always ask questions you know the answer to?" she replied. He raised his eyebrows. "Last I checked, my husband still wasn't here," she reminded him. "Maybe you remember that? Caused enough problems that I was hospitalized for a couple of weeks a few years ago?"

He rolled his eyes at her sarcasm. "You never equated sex with marriage until you were married," he pointed out, and she threw her arms up in frustration.

"I seem to remember a very long discussion about this _before_ I got married," she reminded him. "Pheromones, attraction, biochemistry? This should sound familiar, because you were the one who explained it to me."

"I think I can reverse it." His words stopped her cold, and she frowned.

"It's been more than three years," she said, a non-sequitur, but the first thing that popped into her head.

"Do you want to try?"

She finally sat, her mind spinning. Did she? Would she have if he asked her before? She shook her head slowly, but more in thought than denial. "I don't know if he's dead or not," she said slowly. "The ship might have…" She was talking more to herself than to him, so didn't bother to finish that thought. A minute later, she looked back up at him. "If he's not dead, and _Voyager_ magically reappears next week, would we be able to have more kids?"

She hadn't realized that she wanted another baby until she asked the question. She hadn't even been sure she wanted the first one, but now that she had formed the thought and vocalized it, she realized she did. She wanted another baby. With Tom. She wanted them to do the newborn stuff together, the way they should have the first time, the way another Tom and B'Elanna were doing on another _Voyager_ in another universe. She wanted him there for first words, first steps, for temper tantrums and giggles and everything in between.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Maybe not. Probably not."

She shook her head again, this time more definitively. "No," she said. "No, I'm not going to risk it." She would rather live without sex than give up the chance to have another baby with Tom.

He nodded slightly. "I'll keep working on it," he promised. "The offer stands if you ever want to consider it."

"Thank you." For as often as he rubbed her the wrong way, she appreciated that about Dr. Gault, that he always treated her like an adult and respected her decisions, even back when she was a 17-year-old cadet and definitely not acting like an adult.

This new realization about what she wanted was still bouncing around her head hours later, back at the Paris house, and she went into Owen's study with a new determination. "This Pathfinder project," she said without preamble, referring to the name of the group that consisted of one cartographer and two astrophysicists sifting through the _Voyager_ data. "Do you think you have room for a civilian engineer?"

He looked up, amused. "Do you have one in mind?" he asked.

"Me." He looked confused, then concerned, then put down the PADD he had been studying.

"What's this about?" he asked slowly.

"Glass and I had an idea on how to find _Voyager_ ," she reminded him. "And I've been working on it, but I can't give it the attention it deserves, not while my duties are elsewhere."

He shook his head. "You need to finish your thesis, B'Elanna."

"I need to find Tom!"

He sighed. "I promised you I won't meddle with your life or your career," he said after a long pause, "and I won't. But I'm also not going to participate in you throwing away your career."

"There are things more important than my career!"

"I know that!" he replied, the unexpected force behind his words making B'Elanna blink in surprise. "I know he's your husband, but he's also my son, and I want him found, too. But you're so close to finishing your master's degree, and you will regret it if you don't turn in that thesis. And the Fleet will regret it, too."

"I don't give a damn about the Fleet right now, Owen!"

"You should!" he said, his voice again rising. "The war is not going well! We need every advantage we can get. If you don't finish that technical manual, it will be months, probably a year until another engineer can get to your level of knowledge in Jem'Hadar systems, and I don't know if we have a year!" He took a deep breath. "Finish your thesis," he said a minute later. "When it's done, I'll see what I can get do to get you assigned somewhere where you can focus on Dominion communication technology. I promise."

It grated on her when he used that word, because it had grated on Tom. He threw promises around like they didn't mean anything, and she didn't necessarily trust that he meant it any more now than when he promised Tom as a kid that he would be at his soccer games or flight competitions. But at the moment, it was the best she had.

Three weeks later, her master's thesis was accepted by the committee at Starfleet Academy College of Engineering and Starfleet Corps of Engineers. Five minutes after that, Technical Guide 47-893: The Jem'Hadar Fighter, was distributed to every engineer and mechanic across the Fleet.


	47. 2377

Stardate 54474  
October 2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager  
_ Alpha Quadrant

Lt. Tom Paris and Ensign Harry Kim took their relief for lunch at the same time. "So what's it like, having your family here?" Kim asked, in that awkwardly hesitant way he had, and Paris couldn't help but chuckle at the ridiculousness of the question.

"It's a little surreal," he said, which was the only way he could think to describe it. "I could do without the lectures from my dad, too," he muttered. Harry wisely didn't say anything to that.

Paris went directly to the replicator, but Kim actually picked up a tray from Neelix's kitchen. "I feel bad for him," Kim said as he joined him at the table. Paris chuckled.

"You're a better man than me, Harry," he said.

Harry didn't always join him for lunch; they were friends, both bridge officers and on the senior staff, but they had their own groups of friends that they were closer to. Paris usually hung out with the self-proclaimed "old folks" of the ship, those who had families and children back home, whereas Kim spent most of his time with his fellow junior officers. At least, he had for the first two years, and then started spending more and more time alone with the deputy chief engineer, Lt. Sue Nicoletti. Paris won that betting pool when they finally announced their engagement after three years of denying that their relationship was anything serious. "No Sue today?" Paris asked as he speared a vegetable.

"She's back on gamma shift, since Joe has to be on alpha," Kim explained. Back when Harry and Sue started dating, Joe had switched shifts with Sue, taking gamma so she could be on alpha shift. He preferred the night shift anyway, or so he said, and liked to end his day with the senior staff meeting instead of starting it that way. Tom teased him about being a hopeless romantic, but did split his winnings in replicator rations. After all, there probably wouldn't have been a wedding if it hadn't been for Joe giving up alpha shift.

"The downside to being the chief engineer: dealing with the 'consultant' from HQ," Paris joked. "Ah, speak of the devil," he said as Carey entered the mess hall. "Did you lose a lieutenant commander?" he asked as Joe joined them at the table.

Carey looked toward the door, as if just realizing that Torres wasn't behind him. "She's running a diagnostic on one of the systems that Seven installed."

"You let her get distracted," Paris said, sighing dramatically. "Rookie mistake. Now she's going to be in your engine room until we dock."

"What about you?" Carey asked. "Did you lose a six-year-old?"

"She's spending time with Naomi," Paris replied. "Poor Sam." He grinned suddenly as he remembered a conversation in the _Flyer_. "She asked Patrick if he wanted to be her boyfriend."

Carey laughed. "Well, the girl has taste," he joked.

"He turned her down, though," Paris continued. "Said he needs to focus on school."

Carey laughed again. "He must get that from Sarah," he said. "No way I would have turned down a pretty girl."

B'Elanna appeared five minutes later, seeming excited about whatever it was that she had got distracted about. "This ship is going to keep me occupied for years," she said as she sat down. "The integration of Starfleet and Borg technology—"

"Don't forget all the other tech we picked up on the way," Carey chimed in.

"Oh, I haven't," she said, still sounding excited. She turned to Paris, still smiling. "How was your morning?"

"The joys of flying in a straight line at warp," he quipped. She raised her eyebrows.

"You're in a mood," she said.

"Just annoyed at Dad," he said. She snorted and turned her attention back to her food.

"And they said it will take time to fall back into old patterns," she commented wryly. "Captain Janeway invited us to dinner tonight," she informed him. "Well, Owen and Izzy and I," she amended. "But she said you're welcome to join."

"Thanks," he said dryly. She rolled her eyes at him.

The rest of the duty shift was uneventful, and dinner was fine. Captain Janeway apologized for taking so long to have them over, but she knew B'Elanna would be busy in engineering and wanted to wait until they moving again. She also apologized for hosting dinner in her quarters; the captain's mess had been converted into Neelix's kitchen shortly after they began their journey home. Tom had had dinner in the captain's quarters several times over the years, always an informal affair with other crewmembers; this was more formal, but strange. He doubted most formal dinners with admirals were in the captain's quarters, or involved six-year-olds, or that the said admirals had been captains and mentors of the said captains when they were junior officers.

After dinner, the three of them went back to his quarters, where B'Elanna curled up in a chair with a PADD to check on a diagnostic or something, and Tom replicated some popcorn before grabbing his computer console. "Can we watch cartoons again?" Izzy asked excitedly. B'Elanna chuckled from her seat in the corner.

"Wonder where she gets that from?" she murmured. Tom grinned over at her.

They watched cartoons for over an hour, B'Elanna alternating between rolling her eyes and smiling at their giggling, before she declared it was time for Izzy to get ready for bed. "Just one more," she pleaded.

"You already got your 'one more,'" B'Elanna pointed out. "Go brush your teeth."

"Dad?" Izzy asked pleadingly. He chuckled and shook his head.

"Nice try," he replied, "but I'm not nearly foolish enough to fall for that one. Brush your teeth." She gave an aggravated sigh, but made her way toward the bathroom.

Once they got Izzy tucked into bed on the couch, the parents likewise got ready for the night. "What did Owen say this time?" B'Elanna asked as she settled into bed. Tom sighed.

"He reminded me that this is going to take time," he said. B'Elanna frowned.

"Well, he's not wrong," she said. "Ninety percent of my discussions with Dr. Bayrote over the last two years have been about 'managing expectations' and 'preparing for conflict.'"

"So, forty-five minutes out of one fifty-minute session?" he teased. She rolled her eyes.

"I do attend counseling sessions," she informed him. "Apparently, proximity helps. It's harder to say no when I'm already in San Francisco." She hesitated, then said, "He suggested family counseling once we get settled. Not with him—he doesn't do family counseling, and said it would a conflict of interest, anyway. There's a family counselor on Mars, if we go that route, or one of the counselors at Starfleet Medical if we stay on Earth."

He exhaled as he thought about it. It made sense; neither he nor B'Elanna was the same person they were when _Voyager_ left UP, and Izzy hadn't even been alive, but he really hated talking about his feelings with anyone. He needed to figure out how to fit in their lives, though, and if that took professional help, he was going to do it. "That's a good idea," he acknowledged. B'Elanna's eyes widened in surprise.

"Owen must have said more than just that," she said, "or you wouldn't be agreeing to counseling so easily."

He sighed and nodded, and relayed his conversation with his father to her, everything from B'Elanna and Izzy not needing him to the family taking B'Elanna's side if he screwed it up, and when he was done, she smirked. "You Paris men are so dramatic," she teased. He opened his mouth to protest, but she covered it with her hand. "I don't need you," she said. "Izzy does," she added. "Girls need their dads. I speak from experience on that. I also know that kids _don't_ need parents who fight all the time." She stopped and thought for a minute, then took a breath, her eyes returning to his. "I want this marriage to work, Tom. I want this _family_ to work. And for some bizarre reason, that family includes your parents and your sisters and the full collection of Izzy's very, very blond cousins. And no offense to Owen, but I know there's no way Alicia is going to let him kick you out of the family for any reason." She frowned, then smirked. "We've never done things the easy way, Tom. Why start now?"

He smiled and kissed her. "Why start now?" he agreed. He remembered something else she had told him. "Do you really want another baby?" he asked.

"Yes," she said simply, then made a face. "Not right now," she amended quickly. "But yes, if we decide that we still like each other and can live with each other, then I want another kid. But I'm going to make you pull your weight this time."

"Deal," he agreed.

"And no," she quickly added, "I didn't go through all this work of finding you and bringing you back home just to have another baby. Or for Izzy to have her father. I did it because I wanted to. Because I wanted you back. And because I promised that I would always fight for you and never give up on you. I never stopped loving you, Tom."

"And I never stopped loving you," he replied. "Or believing in you. If anyone could find us and get us home, I knew it would be you."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm glad I could give you hope for those first years, but you need to stop thinking I have some sort of engineering superpower."

"I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "You _did_ find us and got us home. Where was I wrong?" She rolled her eyes again and he smirked. "We're almost at when you found us," he pointed out.

She nodded. "Owen came through," she said. "He pulled the right strings to get me transferred from UP to Pathfinder. The orders came through a week after my thesis was published, and they even transferred the teaching credits I still needed for my master's degree from the Tech Academy to the Academy. I've never seen anything in Starfleet move that quickly, so I guess Operations was eager to get me working on figuring out the Dominion communications network. They barely gave us time to pack before it was back to Earth for Izzy and me."


	48. 2374

Stardate 51640  
September 2374  
Hilo, Hawaii, Earth

Izzy was in a mood, and B'Elanna could hardly blame her. Moving to another planet was a lot to take in for anyone. Especially quarter-Klingon preschoolers.

Owen had made good on his promise to have her transferred somewhere where she could work on figuring out how exactly the Dominion communication network: the Communications Research Center. They didn't know exactly how she was going to fit within the group; engineers had a place in the Center, but she wasn't going to be in the Communication Engineering section. She would be sitting with the Dominion Communication Group, but wasn't assigned to them. Technically, she was assigned to the Pathfinder project. Owen's pet project to find _Voyager_.

And now, her pet project to find _Voyager_.

It was everything she wanted, but came at a cost, and that cost was packing up everything she owned—and Izzy owned—the week after she finished her thesis, and moving to Earth. Everything. Including that dissembled S-class shuttle and all of its component parts, which was currently on a cargo transport bound for a work hangar she managed to find in Alaska.

It had been easier to find a two-bedroom apartment in Hawaii than it had been to find a shuttle hangar and workspace anywhere on Earth.

It had been a week since their move back to Hawaii, a week of unpacking and trying to get settled and Izzy not being able to fall asleep, despite the fact that her new room was set up exactly the way her old room had been. They both needed a break, and fortunately, B'Elanna had unpacked Izzy's hiking boots that morning. "Do you want to go for a hike?" B'Elanna asked, holding up the boots. Izzy brightened for a split second, and then remembered that she was supposed to be upset, and instead gave her mother a glare. "We can see a waterfall," B'Elanna added, and that was enough to convince Izzy.

The last time they lived in Hawaii, Izzy was too young to be doing any hiking on her own power, but B'Elanna still spent a lot of time exploring trails around Hawaii with Izzy in a pack, and had a pretty good idea of which trails would be appropriate for her three-year-old. She knew where all the crowded hikes and waterfalls were, and she also knew which ones were accessible by a three-year-old and granted said three-year-old enough room to run around without having to deal with too many other people.

Izzy's bad mood faded almost as soon as they hit the trail, and it was only a few minutes later before she was her usual happy and hyper self. "Izzy, don't get too far ahead," B'Elanna warned as Izzy again ran up ahead, and then she sighed as Izzy tripped over a root and went sprawling to the ground. "And watch your feet," she muttered.

"I'm okay!" Izzy cried out as she scrambled back to her feet. Of course she was; B'Elanna was half-convinced that Izzy was mostly made of rubber, for as easily as she bounced back.

They made their way to the pool under the waterfall, and for a few glorious minutes, Izzy was mesmerized by the falling water. She loved water, but had lived on Mars for more than two-thirds of her short life. There were no waterfalls on Mars, and no large bodies of water to speak of, so getting to see such a spectacular display was new for her. And it wasn't even that spectacular of a waterfall, compared to some of the more famous ones.

"It's pretty," Izzy said, her voice heavy with awe, and B'Elanna smiled at seeing the world from her daughter's eyes.

And then Izzy got too close to the edge of the pool, and fell in.

Izzy didn't know how to swim. There were no large bodies of water on Mars, after all, and swim lessons hadn't yet been a priority.

B'Elanna dove in to get her, only a few seconds behind Izzy, and easily grabbed her and lifted her head above water. In all, she had only been in the water for about fifteen seconds, but that was enough to panic Izzy, her small but strong body fighting against her mother's help. "Calm down, Izzy," B'Elanna pleaded as she made her way back to the edge of the pool.

Izzy was still sobbing as B'Elanna pulled her out of the water and onto her lap. "It's okay, baby girl," B'Elanna murmured. "It's okay." She repeated the words, rocking the pre-schooler, not sure if Izzy heard her over her sobs.

After a few minutes, Izzy began to calm down, but still clung to her mother in a way she hadn't done in years. "You're okay, baby girl," B'Elanna assured her. "I fell in the water, too. When I was a little bit older than you and visiting Qo'noS. My mother had to save me, too."

Izzy sniffed a few times. "Scared?"

"It was really scary," B'Elanna confirmed. "My mom was scared, too."

"Your mommy?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Where she?"

"My mother?" B'Elanna realized she had never told Izzy about her mother. "She's in Sto-vo-kor," she finally said.

"Where that?"

"That's the Klingon word for heaven," B'Elanna said. "She died, before you were born. Her name was Miral."

"Like me!"

"Like you," B'Elanna confirmed.

"Was she nice?"

B'Elanna resisted the urge to snort derisively, but just barely. "She loved me," she finally said. "And she taught me a lot about how to be a mother." And how not to be a mother. "You know, when I fell in the water, she taught me about Sto-vo-kor." And then B'Elanna did the same for Izzy, starting with Kortar, glossing over how he killed the gods, and explaining how he now spent eternity ferrying the dead to Gre'thor. It was a bit of a dark story—as all Klingon stories were—so she ended with explaining redemption to Sto-vo-kor and spending eternity in glory.

"Just Klingons?" Izzy asked uncertainly. Mars Station—and the daycare at Mars Station—was very diverse, so Izzy didn't necessarily view herself as 'different' from the other kids, but she was at the age where she knew that she and her mother didn't look like the rest of their family. After their month on Qo'noS, she knew who Klingons were and knew that she was like them, but also not like them. But she was also at the age where she didn't know what to do with any of that information, so she just didn't process it.

"No," B'Elanna said quickly. "Sto-vo-kor, heaven… those are just different words for the same thing. It's for everyone you love."

Izzy thought about that for a minute. "Granpa and Granma?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Ainsley and Kajsa and Navi?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Granpa John?"

There was a beat of hesitation, and then B'Elanna said, "Grandpa John, too."

"Is Granpa John your daddy?"

'Daddy' was a new concept for Izzy; they had told her stories about Tom her entire life, but as far as B'Elanna knew, he wasn't a real person in her mind, and she didn't understand what a father might be. "He is," B'Elanna confirmed cautiously, and Izzy seemed to think about this new piece of information.

"Where's my daddy?"

B'Elanna took a deep breath. She had known since _Voyager_ had disappeared that she would someday have to have this conversation with Izzy, but she still found herself unprepared for it. "Your dad is lost," she said. "Grandpa and I are trying to find him. That's why we moved back to Earth."

"Is he on Earth?"

"No," B'Elanna replied. "He's far, far away."

Izzy thought about that for a minute. "Earth is far away," she said.

"Earth is far away from Mars," B'Elanna agreed, "but your dad is further away than that."

"Where?"

B'Elanna sighed. There was no easy way to explain the Milky Way galaxy quadrants to a three-year-old. "When it gets dark tonight and we can see the stars, I'll show you," she said.

"He's in the stars?"

"Mm-hmm."

"How?"

Her usually hyper girl was still curled in B'Elanna's lap. It was so unlike her to sit so still for so long, and B'Elanna wondered if she was still scared from her impromptu swim. "Do you remember when Grandma and all your cousins came to Mars before Christmas last year?" Izzy nodded. "Remember when Drew got lost?"

"Yeah."

"And you went out in groups to look for him."

"So we don't get lost, too!" Izzy said, excited to know that answer.

"That's right," B'Elanna replied. Really, Alicia had commed UP security as soon as she realized she was missing a grandchild and they had given her Drew's position in less than a minute, but she had grouped up her grandchildren and sent them out on search parties, mostly to keep them occupied. "Before you were born, there was a ship that got lost in space," B'Elanna began. "And they had to send another ship to look for it. Your dad was on that other ship. But then they got lost, too, and now we need to find them."

"Are you going to get lost?"

"No," B'Elanna said. "Grandpa and I are going to be searching from right here. From Earth."

Izzy seemed satisfied with that answer. "And then I'll have a daddy?"

B'Elanna wanted to explain that Izzy had always had a father, that Tom loved her very much even before she was born, but that was far too abstract for her. "You will," she said instead.

"Is it fun?"

"To have a dad?" B'Elanna asked, and Izzy nodded. "Your dad is a lot of fun," she said. "You're going to like him a lot."

"Will he play soccer?"

B'Elanna chuckled at the question and kissed the top of Izzy's head. "I'm sure he will," she said. "You'll play soccer, and play on the holodeck, and someday, he's going to teach you how to fly."


	49. 2374

Stardate 51857  
December 2374  
San Francisco, Earth

B'Elanna Torres hated Christmas.

She had vague memories of celebrating Christmas when her parents were still married. She even thought she remembered one Christmas spent on Earth, but she didn't know if she actually remembered it, or just remembered the stories her grandmother told about it.

After John left, Christmas was no longer a thing in her childhood. Her primary and secondary schools still had winter break, of course, just like summer break, but Miral had spent those school breaks trying to fill B'Elanna's head with anything Klingon, and B'Elanna spent just as much energy resenting every moment of that instruction.

When she started at the Academy, her three roommates plebe year included two humans and a Betazoid. Reyana was just as confused about Christmas as B'Elanna, and Ruiz and O'Neill had spent several hours trying to explain it to them. The way they explained it, there was a religious component, but also a non-religious component, and the two didn't have anything to do with each other, but there were presents involved. Reyana had finally shrugged and said it sounded cute. B'Elanna still hadn't gotten it, but as it didn't seem to involve anyone killing anyone else and declaring a major victory—her gold standard for holiday celebrations at that point in her life—she just rolled her eyes and went back to whatever homework she had been working on. After Isela Torres had come back into her life, she had invited her then-teenaged granddaughter to the Torres Christmas celebration, but B'Elanna had declined, not wanting to see John or see him happy with his new family.

The year they had been dating, Tom and B'Elanna had passed on Christmas and spent the winter holiday on the beach in the Seychelles. To this day, it was still her favorite Christmas. She did enjoy seeing Izzy get excited about presents, but could do without having to figure out what to replicate or procure for everyone on her ever-expanding Christmas list. This year, she ended up getting a lot of gifts for the kids on Qo'noS. She figured that would be something different for them.

Christmas Eve found her the same place she was every day: in the communications lab in the Dominion Communication Group, running another set of experiments. There was a significant amount of signal leakage as they tried to increase the size of the communication network, and they were trying to figure how to stabilize the signal to prepare for long-range communication.

"I was hoping you'd be here." Lt. Torres jumped and turned at the sudden voice right behind her. Standing awkwardly close was Lt. Dakotah Cohen, the stellar cartographer on the Pathfinder Project.

"Cohen," Torres greeted, taking a step back to give herself more space. "Do you have something?"

"Yes!" Cohen said excitedly. "I was running some scans through the expanded network, you know, the ones that involve the new sites in Romulan space—can you believe the Romulans are our allies now? Wow, this quadrant hardly even makes sense anymore—"

"Cohen. The point."

"Right. Sorry, sir. The point. The point. I think I need to show you. Can you come down to the Pathfinder lab?"

Torres sighed, glancing down at her console, which was still running various permutations of the algorithms to stabilize the comm signal. There was nothing she could do on that until the program was done running, so she might as well see what Cohen had found.

The Pathfinder lab was one of the older astrometrics labs on one of the lower decks, with three work stations for the three officers who shared the space. Cohen had walked past her own work station and went directly to the viewscreen controls. A few taps of controls later, and a large map of the galaxy appeared. "Okay, here's the Dominion communication network, and here are the new sites in Romulan space. I ran a test simulation of—"

"Cohen."

"I found this." A second later, a series of dots appeared, stretching almost all the way from the edge of Romulan space and well into the Delta quadrant.

Almost all the way to the Starfleet insignia that represented _Voyager_ 's estimated position.

"What is it?" Torres asked, leaning forward as if being a few centimeters closer to the giant viewscreen would answer that question.

"It's a communication network. Well, another, communication network."

"It's huge!" Torres observed. "Who built it? Who operates it?"

Cohen turned to face her, her eyes wide. "Do you need me to find that out?" she asked.

"No, no," Torres said quickly. "Is it operational?"

Cohen nodded. "That's how I was able to map it. These nodes are all active. There might be other, inactive, nodes, but they wouldn't have shown up on mapping."

Something that Cohen had just said clicked to Torres. "How did you map it?" she asked slowly, her mind spinning as she tried to put the pieces together.

Cohen brightened. "It's something I came up with," she said excitedly. "I mean, I had a lot of help from the engineers, but—"

"Who?" Torres interrupted.

"Who what?" Cohen asked.

"Which engineers?"

"Oh. Uh, one was Lt. Barclay. He's a little…odd, but he's really nice and really smart. He did—" She stopped talking abruptly at the sound of the Pathfinder lab's door sliding opened, and then snapped to attention at who stood there. "Admiral Paris!" she all but gasped in surprise.

"At ease, Lieutenant," the admiral greeted with a nod before turning to his daughter-in-law. "I'm about to head home. Alicia wanted to know what time you and Izzy were planning on coming."

Torres made a face and checked her chronometer. It after 1300; she had worked through lunch again without realizing it. "I want to chase this down," she said. Izzy was on winter holiday from pre-school and was at daycare—honestly, Torres had no idea what the difference was between Izzy's 'pre-school' and 'daycare,' as they were in the same building and both mostly seemed to involve playing—and while she had several hours before she had to pick Izzy up, Alicia had made some comment about baking cookies on Christmas Eve, and Izzy was looking forward to it. "Can you pick Izzy up from day care? I'll meet you at your house in a few hours."

"Don't lose track of time," he said warningly. She nodded in concession.

Cohen still looked halfway terrified after the doors slid closed behind Admiral Paris. "Where can I find Lt. Barclay?" Torres asked her, hoping to get her back on track.

"Oh!" Cohen exclaimed. "He's in the engineering section. Fifth deck."

"Thanks," Torres replied. She paused, then added, "Merry Christmas."

"Oh, I'm Jewish, sir," Cohen replied. Torres stopped and frowned.

"I have no idea what that means," she admitted, and Cohen smiled.

"Sometimes, neither do I," she said cheerfully. "I don't celebrate Christmas, but thank you," she added. "Merry Christmas to you, though."

Torres made her way up to the fifth floor, still shaking her head slightly at the exchange, and after asking a few people where she could find Lt. Barclay, was directed to a holodeck. She didn't know what kind of program it was, but found an officer standing in front of a console of some sort. "Lt. Barclay?" she asked, and he looked up in surprise.

"Y-yes, that's me," he stammered. "You must be Lieu-lieutenant Torres," he continued. "Lieu-lieutenant Paris' wi-wife."

She blinked in surprise; she hadn't been introduced as Tom's wife since the _Voyager_ memorial almost two years before, and had never been introduced as such outside the context of _Voyager_. "That's right," she said slowly.

"S-sorry," he said quickly. "I-I didn't m-mean to m-make it-it awkward—"

"Lieutenant," Torres interrupted. "You helped Lt. Cohen run a test of a communications network. I was wondering if you could explain how you were able to produce a signal that didn't degrade."

"Oh!" he said, brightening. "I-I will show you. Computer, change program to-to Barclay Gamma-8."

His stutter went away as soon as he started as he started talking about something he knew about, and for the next few hours, it took everything Torres had to keep up. She knew more about how Dominion communications worked than anyone else in Starfleet, but there was a lot to communication engineering that she didn't know, and Lt. Barclay was giving her a crash course in all of it at once.

Probably a good thing; one of the classes she would be teaching at the Academy in the upcoming semester was Advanced Communication Network Engineering.

Sending a diagnostic signal through a network was almost nothing like two-way communication, but she was starting to see ways she could apply the same methods he used to open up a channel. Maybe through the whole expanded network they had built from Dominion tech.

And maybe all the way through that, and through the other network they had just found. And to where _Voyager_ might be.

Torres was back at her console when Owen commed. _*Alicia saved you some dinner,*_ he said as a greeting. _*And Izzy's made some cookies.*_

" _SoS,_ " B'Elanna replied, checking her chronometer. It was far from the first time she had lost track of time, but Izzy had been looking forward to Christmas, and she had wanted to spend the time with her. "I think I have something, Owen," she said. "I just need another hour to modify the signal."

 _*You might have some what?*_ he asked, and she realized that she had been doing all of this without him even knowing about Lt. Cohen's findings.

"I'll explain as soon as I get to your house," she promised. "If this works, Owen… This could be the best Christmas ever."

She finished within the hour, as she estimated, and then programmed a repeating, encrypted message with instructions on how to respond. After programming her PADD to receive Pathfinder data, and instructing the crewman on staff duty to comm her immediately if a response came through, she beamed over to the Paris house.

Over a glass of whiskey, she explained the communication network Lt. Cohen had found, the test signal Lt. Barclay had transmitted, and her own repeating message that she had modified. "If they're within four light years of any of those stations, they should be able to detect it."

She was buzzing with excitement, but every hour that went by without a notification on her PADD or a comm from the Communications Research Center dulled that excitement a little more. By the time the extended Paris family had gathered for Christmas breakfast and presents the next morning, she was merely hopeful, her frequent checks of her PADD becoming more and more desperate with each present that was opened.

After a long morning at the Parises, it was time for her and Izzy to beam over to her uncle Carl's house in Arizona for the Torres Christmas dinner. She had crashed hard from that buzz of excitement, leaving her feeling dejected, and putting up with her father and the relatives she only knew peripherally was the last thing she wanted to do. She liked most members of the Torres family individually, but when they were all together, it was a bit much. She knew how this would go: Carl's wife Stacy would be overly kind to make up for the awkward feeling of distance she had in that family; Elizabeth would bring her latest girlfriend, getting her hopes up about meeting the family and what that meant about the future of the relationship, only to have Elizabeth dump her coldly and suddenly in another month or so; Dean would go on one of his rants about women who didn't pay attention to him; Michael would be embarrassed by both of his older siblings and make an excuse to leave as soon as dessert was finished; John would participate in the conversation for the first half of the afternoon, and then find a seat on a couch and read a PADD; and Navi would try her hardest to keep Izzy entertained in a house where there were no other children.

But it was Christmas, and Navi would be disappointed if they didn't make an appearance, so despite her sour mood and dour predictions of the afternoon, off to Arizona they went.

She knew she was too harsh on her family, knew that she was judging the whole lot by her father's actions, but knowing that didn't stop her from doing it.

And Christmas came and went with a signal repeating itself half of the galaxy away, its message remaining unanswered.


	50. 2375

Stardate 51874  
January 2375  
Hawaii, Earth

B'Elanna Torres felt like she had just fallen asleep when the announcer chimed on her apartment. "Go away," she muttered, even though she knew that the person on the other side of the door couldn't hear.

Unfortunately, the person also didn't go away.

The chime kept coming, and then her combadge beeped. _*Wyland to Torres,*_ Sydney's voice said. _*I know you're in there. Let me in.*_

"Go away," B'Elanna repeated, this time into her combadge.

_*It's time to run.*_

"The sun isn't even up yet," B'Elanna replied, feeling silly talking to an empty room. She was awake now; she knew she should just let her sister-in-law in, but still wasn't feeling like it.

 _*That's the point,*_ Sydney said with a sigh. _*If you aren't running when the sun rises up on the new year—*_

"It's seven years of bad luck?" B'Elanna asked, finally pulling herself out of bed. She grabbed her robe as she made her way to the living room and called for the door to open.

"Well, no," Sydney said as she entered. "But c'mon. What better way is there to greet the new year than running?"

"Sleeping," B'Elanna said emphatically. "You should have done this stupid 'run while the sun rises' thing a few years hours again in San Francisco."

"Why, when I could sleep in and do it here?" Sydney teased. "I told you not to go out with Nicki and Jason." B'Elanna groaned at the memory. "Where'd you go, anyway?"

"London," B'Elanna replied. "And then New York, Chicago, Denver, and back here."

"Five New Year celebrations?" Sydney laughed. "Thank the gods for synthehol."

"I'm pretty sure Nicki switched us to real champagne in Denver."

Sydney rolled her eyes. "What can I say? My sister's a bit of a loose cannon. I still don't know what Starfleet was thinking when they offered her a commission." B'Elanna snorted in agreement. "Hurry up," Sydney said. "The sun's going to start to rise in less than an hour."

They beamed over to the southern end of the island and made their way to their usual running route in the Ka'ū Forest. B'Elanna had selected Jakarta for the next marathon; they had until October to train, but since the chill in San Francisco would do nothing to help prepare for the heat and humidity near the equator, Sydney often beamed over to Hawaii to run with B'Elanna, and they now had several running routes of various distances plotted out.

Wednesdays were usually their recovery runs from Tuesday speedwork, and they were definitely taking the run at recovery pace, B'Elanna still feeling thick-headed from the synthehol—and possibly real alcohol—and lack of sleep that came from ringing in the New Year with Nicki and Jason. Never one for parties in the first place, she still didn't know how Nicki had convinced her to go to five of them in one night.

They made their way up the side of a mountain, stopping at an overlook to watch the sun rise above the water. "I'm sorry that your idea to find _Voyager_ didn't pan out," Sydney said, their first words since they started running.

"It was a long shot to begin with," B'Elanna replied, still watching the sunrise. The whole project was a long shot, but that didn't mean she was going to stop trying.

"What are you going to do now?"

B'Elanna shrugged. "Same thing I've been doing since September," she said, finally looking over at her sister-in-law. "Keep working on running signals through the communications network, trying to figure out how to expand it. That huge network that stretches into the Delta quadrant… We're going to have to use that. Somehow. I haven't figured out how yet."

Sydney smiled slightly before returning her attention to the sunrise. "It's going to work," she said with a confidence B'Elanna wished she felt. "2375 is going to be a good year. You'll see."

They made their way back down the mountain to the transporter station and beamed over to San Francisco, heading straight for the Paris house. "Mommy!" Izzy greeted B'Elanna as soon as they crossed through the door. "It's my half birthday!"

B'Elanna frowned down at her before glancing up at Alicia, who shrugged. "I think it was Stephanie who told her about her half birthday. She's been going on about it all morning. Now go get cleaned up, you two. The natives are getting restless and want brunch."

As ordered, Sydney and B'Elanna showered and changed before joining the rest of the family in the living room and kitchen. "Did Nicki switch out the synthehol champagne for the real thing in Chicago last night?" Jason asked B'Elanna as he nursed a cup of coffee and looked worse than she felt.

"I thought it was in Denver," B'Elanna replied, "but yes."

He groaned and rubbed his eyes. "I knew it," he said with a sigh. "Dammit, Nicki."

"Hey, you're the one who married her."

He gave a slight chuckle. "Yeah I did," he said, his tone an odd mixture of pride and resignation. With a crooked smile, he lifted his coffee mug slightly. "Gods help those of us who married a Paris."

"Amen," she agreed, also lifting her mug in a slight toast.

After brunch, the adults remained gathered around the table with their coffee while the younger kids loudly playing and running throughout the house. Ainsley and Kajsa were shooting glares to each other across the living room—the two had gone to a New Year's Eve party together, and B'Elanna could only imagine how that went, as she couldn't see the quiet and intense Kajsa and the loud and spontaneous Ainsley having the same idea of what constituted a good party—when her PADD chirped. "What is it?" Nicki asked before she even pulled it out of her pocket.

"Probably an errant signal," she replied, then frowned as she studied the data. She typed a few commands, her frown deepening, and then rose from the table.

"What is it?" This time, Owen.

"I'm not sure," she said slowly. "I need to go to the lab to check it out."

He also rose. "I'll go with you," he said. She shook her head.

"It's probably nothing," she cautioned.

He shrugged. "I have some reports I need to catch up on, anyway," he said. "And if it's not nothing, I want to be there."

She nodded, then glanced at Alicia. "You don't mind watching Izzy?"

Before Alicia answered, Izzy somehow appeared. "I wanna come!" she exclaimed. "It's my half birthday!" B'Elanna was really starting to wonder what exactly Stephanie had told Izzy about half birthdays, but that would have to wait until another time. She was about to explain that she was just going to the lab, but Owen interjected.

"You want to spend some time in my office?" he asked. She brightened; she liked the toys he kept there, and B'Elanna was too distracted to argue.

A quick change into their uniforms and they were off, her comfortably in the lab less than ten minutes after her PADD had chirped.

It wasn't a random signal from a spatial anomaly, but she didn't know what it was. She called in everyone she could think of and get hold of on the holiday; Lt. Cohen and Lt. Commander Makarova, the astrophysicist, got to work on trying to find out where the signal originated. Lt. Barclay and an ensign from the engineering section got to work on isolating and clarifying the signal. Two of the comms techs from the Dominion section came in to see if the signal was traveling through the Dominion network without any issues.

She tried not to get her hopes up, but that was hard.

"It's definitely coming from the Delta quadrant," she informed Owen a few hours after they arrived, the first piece of definitive news she had to share. They were sitting in the CRC's mess, the room all but empty on the holiday. "We're still working on cleaning it up enough to figure out who's sending it." She could imagine Captain Janeway standing on the bridge of the lost ship, frustrated at not being able to get a message through. "We're sending instructions on how they should remodulate their transducer to clarify the message, but," she shrugged in frustration, "their tech is more than four years old, and we don't know how beat up it's gotten in that time. We don't even know if they can hear our message."

"If it's _Voyager_ ," Owen pointed out.

"If," B'Elanna agreed, then sighed and glanced at her chronometer. She had only been gone from the lab for ten minutes and was already itching to go back. "I'll comm you as soon as we have something."

"I wanna come!" Izzy insisted for the second time that day. B'Elanna sighed again.

"Izzy, there's nothing for you to do in the lab, and there are a lot of people who are working really hard. You're going to be in the way."

"I won't!" she insisted.

"There are toys for you to play with in Grandpa's office," B'Elanna reminded her daughter.

"But I wanna go with you!" she whined. "It's my half birthday!" B'Elanna frowned at that again and made a mental note to try to figure out what Izzy expected to happen on her half birthday. Did she think there was going to be a party? She had a nagging feeling that she was about to be faced with the temper tantrum of a very disappointed preschooler.

"How about if we both to go the lab with your mother?" Owen asked Izzy. "But you need to stick with me, okay?"

"Okay!" she agreed cheerfully, and B'Elanna sighed. She was too distracted by the puzzle she was trying to figure out from 60,000 light years away to point out how terrible of an idea it was to have a three-year-old in the lab. If Owen wanted the responsibility of making sure Izzy didn't get in anyone's way, that was on him. He was the commanding admiral, after all.

Owen's presence in the lab made others nervous and jumpy, and that was not improving B'Elanna's mood. She had to snap at Ensign Hummel twice just to get his attention, and if it happened one more time, she was going to send him home.

Before she got the opportunity, everything changed.

"I-I think I can make out the-the signal!" Lt. Barclay exclaimed. "I just need to—"

"Do it," B'Elanna interrupted. "Explain later."

She didn't even realize she was holding her breath until she heard it.

 _*Starfleet Command, this is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the_ U.S.S. Voyager _, do you read?*_


	51. 2375

Stardate 51874  
January 2375  
San Francisco, Earth

 _*Starfleet Command, this is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the_ U.S.S. Voyager _, do you read?*_

A cheer went up in the lab, lasting barely half a second before Admiral Owen Paris raised his hand to silence them. "Captain Janeway, this is Admiral Owen Paris, we read you."

_*Your message…clear…Admiral…clean—*_

"We're working on it at our end, Captain," Owen said. "Lieutenant," he said, addressing B'Elanna.

"I'm working as fast as I can, Admiral!" she snapped back. She punched in a few more commands, then said, " _Voyager_ , you need to remodulate your signal to frequency Tau-5 and adjust by 0.3 gigahertz." Her fingers were already flying over the console, preparing to make the final adjustments to the signal once the transmission came in from _Voyager_.

 _*B'Elanna.*_ That voice, somewhere between a question and a statement, three syllables that came out as if he wasn't expecting them, and she looked up in surprise just as the visual came through.

He was sitting there, right in front, his blue eyes wide with surprise, a smile still forming on his lips. Tom. He had less hair on his head than he had almost four years before, which amused but didn't surprise B'Elanna—Owen lost his battle with his hairline by the time he was a lieutenant commander, and she had seen old holos of Alicia's father, completely bald by the time he graduated college. Nicki had loved to tease Tom about the genetics behind hair loss, and really, he should consider himself lucky that he still had any hair on top at 29.

But balding or not, he was there, on _Voyager_ 's bridge, alive. Tom was alive, and now grinning in that way he did, that almost-smirk he wore when he felt victorious, about anything, and for a brief second, it was like she was 20 again during that summer they were dating. He would give her that same smile immediately before tackling her onto his bed, getting shrieks of surprise, then laughter once she figured out what that smile meant and what had been about to come.

Owen cleared his throat, and B'Elanna wasn't sure if it was to remind both of them of proper decorum or if he needed to try to swallow the emotion before he spoke. "I'm glad you got our message, Captain," he finally said.

 _*To be honest, we weren't sure it wasn't a trap of some sort,*_ Captain Janeway said, a half-smile on her face. _*How did you know how to find us?*_

Owen turned to B'Elanna, and then back to the viewscreen. "That's a very long story, Captain," he said, "and I don't think we have time for that. I'm going to turn you over to my chief engineer, Lt. B'Elanna Torres."

B'Elanna blinked in surprise and forced her gaze from Tom to Captain Janeway. She looked older than the holos Torres had seen, more worn, which after almost four years of commanding a ship on the other side of the galaxy with no support from Starfleet, was hardly a surprise. "We have a little over four minutes before we lose this comm channel," she said, getting down to business. "I'm sending you instructions for future communications." Her eyes flitted back to Tom, and she knew she was losing that fight to keep from smiling. "Starting now, we're focused on figuring out how to get you home." She was mostly making it up as she went, her mind spinning too quickly. "I'm sending you a list of diagnostics we need you to do, so we can assess your capabilities. If you can send the results the next time we make contact, we'll be able to get started."

She saw Captain Janeway turn to the officer at Ops—Ensign Harry Kim, anyone even remotely connected to _Voyager_ could identify him, from how much his parents loved to overshare—who gave a nod. * _We're sending you our logs, crew reports, and navigational logs,*_ Janeway said in reply.

"Received," Lt. Barclay said from the back of the room.

B'Elanna heard the fast and light steps of a running Izzy, and she automatically reached down to intercept her and lift her to her hip without thinking, forgetting in those few seconds that she was on screen. She heard the sharp of intake of breath, and smiled at the fact that she could surprise Tom.

Having a preschooler on an official channel was beyond breaking Starfleet protocol, as if this comm hadn't been unusual from the beginning, and B'Elanna's mind spun as she tried to figure a way to do this that wasn't completely unprofessional. "It being a holiday, we're a little short-staffed today," she finally explained. "We had to bring in one of our junior engineers. This is Isela Miral Paris. She's been running numbers today. Her arithmetic isn't that great yet, but we needed all the help we could get."

"Hi, Daddy," Izzy greeted cheerfully, and B'Elanna did a double-take in surprise. They had shown her holos of Tom, of course, but she hadn't realized that Izzy connected the stories and the images to an actual person. Or that she would be able to recognize the actual person without someone holding up a holo and saying that that was her father.

 _*Hi, Izzy,*_ Tom greeted from 60,000 light-years away, his voice thick with emotion. And of course he knew that she went by Izzy. * _It's nice to meet you.*_

"It's my half birthday," Izzy informed him, and B'Elanna couldn't help but laugh. All that talk all day about it being her half birthday, and at least she remembered to tell the one person who actually cared.

* _Happy half birthday, Miss Paris,*_ Captain Janeway said. The video broke up on the edges, and B'Elanna returned Izzy to the ground so she would have two hands to dedicate to the console. They had known this would be a short message, but if she could just a couple more seconds out of it, she was going to try. * _I hope your family has a party planned for you.*_

"There's certainly going to be a party tonight," Owen promised, his voice again thick.

* _There will be one here, too, Admiral,*_ Janeway replied. The video broke up again, a slight crack now coming through on audio as well, and B'Elanna wanted just a few more seconds.

"You are no longer alone, _Voyager_ ," Owen said, quickly and passionately, also realizing that they were losing the signal. "We aren't going to stop until we get you home. The year is just beginning, but I can tell 2375 is going to be one of my favorites. Happy New Year, and stay safe."

And then they were gone.

The entire lab was thick with silence for a beat, and then erupted in cheers and chatter and noise, none of which B'Elanna heard. She stared in disbelief at the now blank viewscreen, reliving the last few minutes over and over in her head.

It worked.

Tom was alive.

"Mommy," Izzy said impatiently, tugging at her uniform. B'Elanna looked down in surprise, wondering how long she had been trying to get her attention. She lifted Izzy to her hip and gave her a kiss on her temple.

"Happy half-birthday, baby girl," she said.

"I'm not a baby!" Izzy protested. "I'm three _and a half._ " B'Elanna laughed and nodded in agreement, squeezing Izzy tightly. "Why is Granpa crying?"

B'Elanna glanced over to Owen to see him still staring at the viewscreen, a disbelieving smile on his face and wet streaks of tears down his face. "He's happy," B'Elanna explained.

"Why?"

"Because we found your dad."

* * *

Starfleet immediately went to work on notifying everyone on the crew manifest—those listed as crew, and those on the deceased list, and B'Elanna couldn't even imagine that pain. To have that split second of hope when told that _Voyager_ had not been destroyed, only to have it crushed when told that their loved ones were truly dead, that they would not be coming back, no matter what Starfleet Command or Pathfinder Project could manage.

And Owen, B'Elanna, and Izzy went home to tell the family that Tom was alive.

Alicia processed that news surprisingly quickly, and immediately went into celebratory mode. She invited everyone from Pathfinder and everyone even remotely associated with Pathfinder over to the Paris house, and then as many family members from _Voyager_ she could get hold of. It was short notice, so she wasn't sure how many would make it, but still ordered Nicki to grab the case of 2361 Veuve Clicquot and chill it to be served.

And there was cake, because Izzy insisted that a half birthday party had to have cake.

The toasts were plentiful and frequent, and although she was still feeling the regret of the champagne she had consumed the night before, B'Elanna was grateful for them. Toasting to Captain Janeway and her crew distracted people from coming up to her and offering their inarticulate but heartfelt thanks for finding their loved ones. Which came with a lot more hugging than she liked.

Hours into the celebration found B'Elanna out on the back deck, the heaters thankfully on. She stared up at the stars, wishing that she could be seeing the same stars as Tom, that they could at least have that together. "There's a party going on, and you're outside with a glass of whiskey," Nicki observed. B'Elanna spun quickly in surprise, immediately regretting the move as she had to grab for the railing to keep from falling. She was not used to drinking real alcohol. "I mean, the good champagne is gone, but still. Whiskey on the back deck? That's a Dad move if I've ever seen one."

B'Elanna smiled slightly. "There are a lot of people in there," she replied. "It's good to see Sarah and the boys, but Mrs. Kim already cornered me twice."

Nicki laughed. "That woman certainly loves her son."

"That she does," B'Elanna agreed. They lapsed into silence, B'Elanna going back to staring at the stars. "I'm not the same person I was four years ago," she finally said.

"No," Nicki agreed. "You're not. Which is a good thing. Gods, that would be horrible if people stayed 22 forever." B'Elanna smiled at her sister-in-law's humor, and then Nicki became serious. "We've all changed, B'Elanna. That's what life does. You're a mother now, for fuck's sake. You can't emerge from that unchanged."

"What if he doesn't love the person I've become?" Her words came out in a rush, that horrible thought she hadn't let herself vocalize, even though it had been there for months. Ever since she had gone through that quantum fissure, had encountered those other Toms, had realized how different they were from her own and how different she was from the B'Elannas they knew. She was different now from even the B'Elanna her Tom had known. He fell in love with her when she was 20 and trying to figure out who she was in the world. She was 21 and brash and impulsive when they got married. He left on _Voyager_ when she was 22 and pregnant and honestly believed that pregnancy or motherhood wouldn't change her.

"B'Elanna," Nicki said forcefully, turning B'Elanna to face her. "I'm not going to get into this whole idea of your father leaving you when you were a kid making you think you're not worthy of love, because I'm not a fucking therapist and you have Bayrote for that kind of nonsense. But if you think we keep you around out of some sort of obligation, you couldn't be more wrong. We spend time with you because you're somebody we like spending time with. _Because we love you_." She stared at B'Elanna intently. "You've changed," she said a few beats later, "but inside, you're still the same person Tom married. You're still passionate and loyal and fierce. And Tom's not going to be the same 25-year-old kid you knew, either. Deep space missions change people. We've known that for as long as we've been sending people to space. _Especially_ unintentional deep space missions that were supposed to be three-week rescue missions. On an Intrepid-class ship. Without a counselor. Without a _doctor_ anymore, other than an EMH. With the same hundred and fifty or so people. And no ability to talk to anyone back home. Well, until now." Nicki frowned, then rubbed her forehead. "I forgot where I was going with that," she admitted. "I'm a little drunk, for the second day in a row." She suddenly wrapped B'Elanna in a tight embrace. "You brought my little brother back from the dead," she murmured. "That's the most amazing thing anyone has ever done, and if that's not a reason to love somebody, I don't know what is."


	52. 2377

Stardate 54475  
October 2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager  
_ Alpha Quadrant

Tom remembered that New Year's Day. He had spent weeks creating a holodeck program to celebrate New Year's Eve in mid-20th century New York City, and while some of the crew had gone a little overboard with the celebration—they had had a pretty rough couple of months, and definitely needed the celebration—he had called it a night shortly after 0100. After all, he had a staff meeting at 0800.

The first duty day of 2375 had gone like so many others, until Seven had announced from the newly-redesigned astrometrics lab that she was picking up on a comm signal almost five light years away.

A Starfleet comm signal.

It was a couple of hours of trying to clean it up before they realized it was a repeating, encrypted signal that contained instructions on how they could remodulate their signal to respond.

And then he heard her voice, snapping at his father. And right when he thought he couldn't love her any more.

She was as beautiful as he remembered. More polished, more confident, hair shorter and straighter, and apparently Starfleet had redesigned their uniforms again, no surprise there. She had smiled at him before getting down to business, speaking to Captain Janeway in those clipped, no-nonsense tones she used at work.

He still thought often about that first glance he had at Izzy, because for those four years leading up to it, he spent a lot of time thinking about that baby he didn't get to meet. He had wondered if it was a boy or a girl, wondered what B'Elanna would have named them. He had made up scenarios when he couldn't sleep at night, calculating how old his child would be, imagining what they would look like, what they would be doing at that moment.

And then she was there, on the viewscreen, in B'Elanna's arms, and she was more beautiful than he had imagined, with her mother's ridges and dark unruly curls. He even recognized that attitude that made her think she could hijack an official communication and announce that it was her half-birthday, because she got that from him.

And she had recognized him.

After they lost the channel with Headquarters, the bridge crew had sat in disbelieving silence, and Tom had all but collapsed his head down onto his console from the sheer emotions of the moment. Unfortunately, he had forgotten to disable his console first, and that action caused the ship to jump forward a few kilometers before he corrected, much to the amusement of the rest of the bridge crew.

There was champagne in the Mess Hall that evening—replicated, unfortunately; none of the vintage champagne that his parents collected—and plenty of toasts. He had toasted to B'Elanna and his father for not giving up on them. Joe had toasted to Tom's taste in women. Captain Janeway had wished Izzy a happy half-birthday, and he finally had a birthday for his child.

July 1, 2371. He had been off by a month. He blamed Dr. Gault for the inexact due date they were given.

Tom's group of parent friends on the ship celebrated each other's children's birthdays, usually with a mix of syntheholic beverages and cake while the parent of the birthday kid told stories about said kid and showed his or her friends what birthday gift had been procured for the year. It was only about that kid; no one else told stories of their own kids or tried to one-up the stories. January 28 was Patrick Carey. February 19 was Diego Ayala. April 7 was Aubrey McMinn. May 3 was Sean Carey. May 24 was Ryan-Marie Cabot. June 9 was Alexis Seuphon. August 25 was Natalia and Breanna Yosa.

November 4 was Pedro Ayala. They'll be back to Earth in time to celebrate, but Ayala had no idea where Pedro and Diego were. The Federation had been looking for his ex-wife since they found out Ayala was alive and on _Voyager_ , but in more than three and a half years, all they've found were dead ends. The colony they had been living on when Ayala joined the Maquis had been turned over to the Cardassians; the trail went cold after 2371.

Sam Wildman usually came to the 'birthday parties,' but they didn't do the same for Naomi, because she saw Naomi every day. Paris always wondered if she hugged her daughter tighter on those nights that they gathered in Sandrine's. He also didn't participate by having his own night in the first years, because he didn't have a birthday, name, or any stories of his child.

Six months after they made contact with Starfleet Headquarters, he sat at the head of the table in Sandrine's with a glass of whiskey on the rocks while he read stories of Izzy that B'Elanna had written in her letters. He had gotten her a simple reaction time game for a birthday present, and now that he was thinking about it, realized he had six years' worth of birthday presents for his daughter in bottom of his closet that he should probably give to her.

It was an odd ritual, really, but after more than six years on the other side of the galaxy with the same people, they had developed a lot of odd rituals.

"That day that you contacted us… that was the second best day of my life," he said now to B'Elanna, who looked amused.

"The second?" she asked teasingly. "If the first wasn't our wedding, you have some explaining to do."

He shook his head. "The first was a few days ago, when you and Izzy stepped out of the _Mackay,_ " he said. "Our wedding was third. It was a good day, don't get me wrong, but it's pretty easy to stand next to someone and say you'll always fight for them. It's another when that person is 60,000 light years away and you _still_ fight for them." He smiled at her, pushed her hair behind her ear. "That moment, seeing you on that viewscreen, seeing that you didn't give up on me, seeing _Izzy_ …" His voice trailed off. "Those first years were hard," he said, his voice lower now. "There were moments, days, weeks, when I thought it was over, that nobody back home still cared, still knew to look for us. Honestly, fighting for our lives was easier, because I could distract myself from that idea. But when I saw you, I knew you hadn't given up on me, and I knew you wouldn't give up on me. And that meant a hell of a lot more to me than standing in front of some admiral at Starfleet Headquarters."

"'Some admiral'?" she teased. "Admiral Pitlatch was _your_ commanding admiral!" But she was smiling, and then kissed him in that way that almost made him forget there was a sleeping six-year-old on the other side of the divider.

Almost.

They were going to have to figure out this 'sex as parents' thing. Of course, it will probably be easier once they had more space to be parents than a single officer's quarters on an Intrepid-class ship.

"I wish we could have had the Hirogen network longer," he said with a rueful smile. "I enjoyed getting your letters."

Turned out, the Hirogen didn't like sharing and would rather destroy their entire network than do that. And then there was the whole 'hunting our prey' thing, which he would rather forget entirely.

"And I liked getting yours," she said. "But honestly, it was a terrible mode of communication. The MIDAS array was much better, and Barclay never would have thought about it if we had gotten complacent with the Hirogen network."

She had a point. After that first message, they were never able to get audio or visual reliably, and the only communication for the next three and a half months were letters that came once every nine and a quarter days, give or take a few hours. Then they lost the Hirogen network and had several months of silence before he was able to actually see her again.

"You know a lot of what happened over the next few months," she said. "I gave you most of the highlights in our letters. I guess, though, I just gave you the events, I didn't really…" Her voice trailed off as she tried to find the right words. "It was a paradigm shift," she finally said. "We had almost four years of thinking that _Voyager_ was destroyed and all of you were dead, and suddenly, it wasn't, and you weren't. It was hard for a lot of people. Four years is a long time, and a lot of people moved on. Mark, Captain Janeway's fiancé, had married another woman. Libby—Ensign Kim's girlfriend when you left—was married and had a kid, and that was awkward, but it was really hard for those who were married and had gotten remarried, to find out that their spouses were actually still alive. Sarah hadn't had a serious relationship in those four years, but she told me she felt guilty about the fact that she had even dated other men."

"And for you?" he asked. She had already told him that she hadn't dated, but that didn't mean that things weren't still awkward when he suddenly came back to life. She looked hesitant about her response, looked like she was thinking about it.

"I told you once, during my recovery second classman year, that I didn't know who I was anymore. That I had spent my first two years at the Academy defining myself and being that person, and that wasn't the person I was after my coma. I wasn't the athlete anymore, wasn't the one who had more stamina than all of her classmates, and I got lost trying to find out who I was. It was like that again. For most of our marriage, I was a widow, a single mother, an engineer, a graduate student, and then all of a sudden, I was a wife again and Izzy had a father. I didn't know how to redefine myself to fit that. I didn't know how to rearrange my life to make sure there was again room for you in it. So I did the same thing I did when I was a cadet—I overcompensated on the parts of my life that hadn't changed. I was still an engineer. I was still a graduate student. And I didn't let myself think about much else. Until I was forced to."


	53. 2375

Stardate 51890  
January 2375  
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. B'Elanna Torres walked into room 2302 in Scott Hall—which she still thought of as Scotty Hell, the name every engineering major called the main building of the College of Engineering—and immediately stopped in the doorway. "This is the room for Advanced Communication Network Engineering, right?" she asked after a confused pause.

The room was packed. She had 27 cadets registered for the upper-level communications engineering elective, but there were at least 70 people in the room that only had 50 seats, and not all of them were cadets, judging by their uniforms.

"Sir, Cadet Caylor," one of the first classman cadets—likely an engineering major, based on his gold shoulders, and maybe one of the few in that room who was actually registered for the course—introduced as he stood up. "Sir, everyone knows about your contact with _Voyager_ , and everyone wants to hear about it."

Torres sighed as she fully entered the room and headed toward the front. "You want me to skip twelve weeks of background and get straight to the punch line," she summarized. Caylor's cheeks pinkened slightly, but he nodded.

"That's about right, sir," he said, getting muted laughter in response, and she sighed.

"Take your seat, Cadet," she said in resignation. She glanced out at the students—audience?—in the small auditorium, which should have been twice as large as necessary, and instead had people standing against the back wall, and she sighed again. "Officers stand in the back," she said. There was a beat of confusion, so she explained, "You all have duties you should be at instead of listening to an obscure lecture at the Academy. If you're going to be shirking your duties, you don't get to be comfortable while doing so." There were some chuckles, but she had no idea if they were from the cadets or the officers who begrudgingly got out of their seats.

She waited until everyone was situated, and then began. "For those of you who don't know, I'm Lt. Torres, your instructor for Advanced Communication Network Engineering. Well, the instructor for those of you who are actually taking this class." She took a breath as she tried to figure out how to do this. She didn't like teaching off the cuff, but she certainly hadn't prepared a lecture for this. "Normally right now I'd be going over the syllabus, but I guess we'll save that for Thursday." She pulled out one of her work PADDs from her bag and synced it with the instruction screen.

She started with a map of the Dominion communication network and the theory behind using it to find _Voyager_. She didn't go into great detail—she'd do that when they got to the respective lectures in the course of the class—but also didn't dumb down the engineering. It was over the heads of the cadets, but they were the ones who wanted the story. And maybe being exposed to something a little over their heads will motivate them to learn the material.

The map expanded as she covered the discovery of the communication network that extended into the Delta quadrant and Lt. Cohen's method of mapping it, again not going into detail but also not glossing over anything, and how Lt. Barclay had helped her reconfigure a signal using the same principles.

That signal had been transmitting for over a week before they got any sort of response, and she went over how they modified the systems to receive that response and eventually, make contact with a ship 60,000 light years away.

She ended her presentation with what they wanted to see, less than five minutes of video of a conversation between a stranded ship captain and Starfleet Headquarters, between a husband and a wife, between a father and a daughter.

"We have ten minutes left of class," Torres said when she was finished. "Any questions?"

Not surprisingly, a few dozen hands went up, and she picked one gold-shouldered cadet at random, a first classman and potentially one of the students actually enrolled in the course. "Cadet O'Connor, sir," he said as he rose. "Sir, would this work qualify you for a nomination for a J. Bruce Award?"

She barely resisted the impulse to roll her eyes. Starfleet cadets were universally high-achieving, type-A personalities, and it seemed the engineering departments were even worse. She could still remember her classmates and their obsessions with awards, and how annoyed a lot of them were when she received the Scott Award—for the top engineering student among the senior class—as she didn't really care for accolades, one way or the other. The Scott was awarded before the winter holiday, so for the first classmen, it was now behind them and they had their sights set on the next award, which was the J. Bruce, awarded for achievements in science, technology, or engineering among junior officers, full lieutenants and below. "It would," she said, "if I didn't already have a J. Bruce."

You can't really fix up two Jem'Hadar ships, figure out how to configure them with Klingon cloaking devices, and write a technical manual during a war with the Dominion and _not_ get a J. Bruce.

She picked another student, a compact Tellarite woman, who rose from her chair. "Cadet Kell, sir," she said. "How did you know where to look for _Voyager_? How did you know to look at all?"

Torres smiled slightly. "Someday, Cadet, maybe you'll have a high enough security clearance to look that up yourself." She didn't know why Starfleet Command classified any details about parallel universes, but they did. Her comment got some chuckles out of the room.

The next cadet she picked was a fourth classman, still with the red shoulders of a cadet not allowed to declare a major yet and probably lacking any sort of foundation for the decently technical lecture he had just received. "Sir, was that your husband's first conversation with your daughter?" he asked after introducing himself.

Torres resisted the temptation to shut the question down the way she usually did after getting personal questions at work; she did, after all, just show a room of several dozen individuals a video of Tom and Izzy talking, but that didn't mean she was going to give any more details than necessary. "She's three and a half and _Voyager_ left DS9 four years ago," she said instead. "I think you can probably do the math on that one." That got a few more chuckles. "Does anyone have any questions about the engineering?" Torres asked, exasperated. Most of the waiting hands lowered, and she pointed to one remaining, belonging to a petite Xahean second classman.

"Sir, Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu," she introduced. "Is it feasible to expect this expanded communication network to allow for continued contact with the Delta quadrant?"

"No," Torres replied, impressed that she had picked up on that. She shouldn't have been, in retrospect; Xaheans seemed to be universally adept at engineering and mathematics. "These kinds of communications networks are highly susceptible to astrological phenomena, and there are a lot of astrological phenomena over such a large network. The odds of having been able to get audio and visual communication were negligible, and it probably won't happen again." There were some murmurs in the classroom, probably as they tried to figure out of the whole lecture had been a waste. "What we can do is use the network as a mailbox, of sorts." She found another program on her PADD and sent it to the display. "We configure messages on this end and submit them. They travel through as they're able, and _Voyager_ picks them up on their end, probably a few days later. And they do the same thing. We're collecting letters now for the first transmission, which we'll send tomorrow afternoon." She glanced at the chronometer. "That's it for today. We'll review the syllabus and have the first real lesson on Thursday, so those of you who aren't actually in this course might want to sit that one out."

She gathered her belongings as the cadets and officers filed out of the room, and looked up to see Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu standing in front of her. "Can I help you, Cadet?" she asked as she headed for the door.

"Yes, sir," the cadet said, her inner eyelids blinking. "I was wondering if there is room at Pathfinder for a cadet researcher."

Lt. Torres stopped and frowned. "You're halfway through your second classman year. Don't you already have a lab?"

Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu blinked again, and then made a face. "I've been working in Admiral Male's propulsion lab, sir, but she keeps wanting me to work on a dilithium project. Everyone wants me to work on dilithium projects. Just because I'm from Xahea doesn't mean that dilithium is my only interest!"

Torres understood the frustration. When she was a cadet, everyone thought she would be going into security; she was half-Klingon, after all, and there was only one other Klingon in Starfleet, and he was a security officer. It had been frustrating, to say the least. "Things are happening really fast over at Pathfinder right now," she warned. "A week ago, we had one engineer, two stellar cartographers, and an astrophysicist. We have ten times the personnel now and are still sorting through data that _Voyager_ sent us to figure out what direction we're going." She studied the cadet and sighed again. "What's your concentration?"

The cadet beamed. "Propulsion, sir," she said. "Just like you were." Torres snorted; it's not as if she did much propulsion these days. At times, she forgot that she had been a propulsion major, as she had been focused on systems engineering for most of her Starfleet career. She wasn't surprised that Ku Lia Ika Nu knew her major; Xaheans were nothing if not thorough, and from what she remembered from the few Xahean classmates she had, had near-eidetic memories.

"We might have a place for a propulsion cadet, depending on what comes back from _Voyager_ 's diagnostics," Torres said. "The goal is going to be going _Voyager_ home, which means we're going to be looking into novel propulsion systems. Probably not too much dilithium work in Pathfinder's future." Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu beamed again. "Send me your CV and transcript, and I'll talk to Commander Harkins."

"Thank you, sir," the Xahean enthused. "When you will have an answer for me?"

Right down to the point; Torres liked her already. "I'll talk to him this afternoon," Torres promised. "I'll have an answer for you by the end of the week."

Ku Lia Ika Nu was practically bouncing on her feet in joy at the words, thanking her again before turning and leaving the lecture hall in an excited rush. Torres couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm.

And then her smile faded as she realized that she had all but agreed to take on a cadet mentee. She was teaching three classes—a large workload for a graduate student; most full professors who taught full-time didn't do three classes in one semester—working full-time on Pathfinder trying to re-establish contact with _Voyager_ and trying to figure out how to make their extensive communication work for them, researching novel propulsion systems that will allow a ship to travel 60,000 light years in less than sixty years, and raising a preschooler.

The last thing she needed was another responsibility.

She was still thinking about her conversation with Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu and wondering if it would be possible to fit a cadet researcher into her schedule when she entered her office—an actual office, as the new Chief Propulsion Engineer of the Pathfinder Project—at the CRC. "Have you finished your letter for the transmission?" Owen asked from her doorway, making her jump in surprise.

"I've been a little busy, sir," she snapped, unintentionally harsh in her reply. His eyebrows rose in surprise. "Sorry," she said a few seconds later, rubbing her brow. "I got caught off-guard in class today. I'm going to do it tonight."

"Don't put it off too long," Owen said warningly, as if waiting until the night before it was scheduled to be transmitted wasn't putting it off long enough.

"Tonight," she repeated. "I'll get it done tonight."

He looked like he wanted to say more, but then thought better of it and gave a nod, resuming his course to wherever he was going before he stopped by, and she added another item to her ever-growing list of things she had going on in her life at the moment:

Learning how to be a wife with a husband on the other side of the galaxy.


	54. 2375

Stardate 51890  
January 2375  
Hawaii, Earth

B'Elanna Torres twirled the stem of her wine glass with one hand as she stared out at the stars, barely holding onto a PADD with her other hand.

She had no idea what she was supposed to say to Tom.

She sighed, taking what had to have been the hundredth look at the blank PADD, and in a sudden burst of anger, barely stopped herself from throwing it off the lanai and toward the ocean below.

How did she not know what to say to Tom? What kind of wife doesn't know what to say to her own husband?

She checked the chronometer: 0100. She had been out on the lanai for over three hours, and still had yet to dictate a single word. To be fair, she was working on lesson plans for her courses for some of that time, but still couldn't figure out why this was so hard. She had never been at a loss for words around Tom, not even when she was an angry plebe who had some biting remark to every order he gave.

With a resolute air, she again brought up the PADD, this time closing the dictation and opening a comm channel. * _You're up late,*_ Sarah Carey greeted her from Pennsylvania. B'Elanna heard the sounds of two young boys getting ready for school in the background, and smiled slightly at the thought of the controlled chaos of a family in the morning.

"I'm always up late," B'Elanna pointed out. "I've been writing lesson plans. This teaching thing is hard."

She heard Sarah's laugh through the comm. _*Who would have thought?*_ the fourth-grade teacher teased. _*At least yours should have some sense of decorum.*_

"You've met Starfleet cadets," B'Elanna reminded her. "Your fourth graders are probably easier to deal with. They certainly can't be talking back as much as these cadets do."

 _*Somehow, B'Elanna, I doubt any cadets are talking back to you.*_ B'Elanna snorted, but did have to admit—at least, to herself—that she intentionally kept them a little bit afraid of her to minimize that. * _What's on your mind? No, Sean, stop teasing your brother. Patrick, go get your shoes.*_

"Have you written a letter for Joe yet?" B'Elanna asked, her words coming out in a rush.

_*I thought I turned it into Pathfinder a few days ago. Did you guys not get it? I can send it again.*_

"I haven't checked," B'Elanna said. "I'm sure it's there. I'll check when I go into the office. I just…" her voice trailed off. "What did you talk about?"

There was a long pause on the other end. _*I told him about the boys. I asked for stories about the Delta quadrant to use in lesson plans. And I told him that I miss him, and I hope he stays safe, and I look forward to hearing from. And I apologized for giving up on him and thinking that he was dead. There was a lot of crying.*_

"I don't know what to say," B'Elanna admitted. "I'm not good at casual correspondence. I write technical manuals and engineering lesson plans."

Sarah laughed. _*Engineers,*_ she said teasingly, then became serious. * _You can't fit four years' worth of life into one letter, B'Elanna. Don't even try. And he's going to be happy to hear from you, regardless of what you say. Just… talk to him. Tell him about Izzy. Tell him you miss him.*_

"Thanks," B'Elanna replied, even though she was no closer to figuring out what she was supposed to say.

 _*We're under about twenty centimeters of snow here,*_ Sarah said, the non-sequitur making B'Elanna blink. * _How would you feel about some visitors this weekend, for a couple of hours on Sunday?*_

"I think Izzy and I could find some time for that," B'Elanna replied with a smile.

_*Great. I'll comm you when we're getting ready to head out. We need to get to school. I'll see you then.*_

"See you then," B'Elanna replied before closing the comm link.

She got up from her chair to refill her glass of wine and reopened the dictation program on the PADD. The cursor blinked at her, waiting to start, and she hated that blinking light. She twisted her wedding band with her thumb as she stared at it. She didn't remember exactly when she started wearing it again—sometime after they moved back to Earth, once she realized that her job no longer involved pieces of machinery that the thin band of medal could get caught on—but she caught herself fidgeting with it often, the way she used to catch Tom fidgeting with his without realizing it.

Finally, she took a deep breath.

"Hey, Tom," she started. "It's almost 0200 in Hawaii and I have to be at the Academy in about five hours to teach a class on Dominion technology, and I'm sitting here on the lanai with a glass of wine, trying to figure out what to say. The wine is a cab sav, and every time I open a bottle, I think about what you said every time you opened a bottle of cab sav—'Ah, the wine that gave you a Starfleet career.'" She smiled, then continued, "You'd be laughing at me if you were here, because it's almost 19 degrees out and I'm wrapped in a blanket. 'Only you can move to Hawaii and _still_ find it too cold.'"

She took a deep breath. "I miss you," she said in a rush. "I've missed you every day since you left for DS9. I've missed having you around to be a dad to Izzy, but more than that… I've just missed having you around." She paused again. "I'm glad I got to see you on the comm the other day. I wish we had longer. I wish we could have actually _talked_. I wish we were taking now and I wasn't just rambling incoherently into a PADD." She smiled. "I'm glad you got to see Izzy, even though it was because she was being her usual ornery self. She wasn't supposed to be in the lab—Kahless, I'm not _that_ bad of a mother, that I let my preschooler run around Starfleet research labs—but when we went into the lab to investigate your attempts to respond to our message, she threw a fit when we tried leaving her with your mother. And your father is a _complete_ push-over when it comes to giving his grandchildren what they want. So she came in with us to the lab, and, well, you saw how well that went." She laughed. "She is _just_ like you. My mother used to say that my punishment would be to have a daughter just like _me_ , but nobody ever prepared me for what would happen when I had a daughter just like _you_. Well, maybe not just like you. She has my temper, which has made for some interesting tantrums. And she's stubborn, but don't think I'm taking all the blame for that one!" She smiled at the thought of the knowing grin on his face. "I didn't think I could love someone the way I love her. She's changed me—Nicki says it's impossible to be a mother and _not_ be changed by that. I actually leave work at reasonable hours now, believe it or not." She smiled, again imagining his disbelieving expression. "I wasn't sure I'd be able to do this without you," she admitted. "I thought I'd be too much like my mother. I thought I'd demand too much of her or be too hard on her or… something. I was afraid I'd turn her that angry person I was when arrived in San Francisco.

"My mother died," she said abruptly. "After you disappeared, a little before Izzy was born. I went to Qo'noS to see if we could make amends, and I thought… I thought that maybe we could. That maybe me being about to be a mother would mean that we could find a place that we could move forward from, together. But before we could see… she died." She gave a bitter chuckle. "It wasn't a good year. And then Izzy was born, and that was hard.

"But I figured it out. As much as anybody figures it, I think. Nicki and your parents are always saying that every parent is making it up as they go. I'm sure Sydney thinks otherwise, but, well, that's Sydney. They've been really helpful, your family. Nicki's a pain in the ass most of the time, as I'm sure you could guess, but having a pediatrician in the family comes in handy at times. Sydney… Sydney's helpful in her own way. We go running together a few times a week. She got me running marathons, if you can believe that. I tried to teach her how to pole vault in return, but she's terrible at it." She smiled at the memory; Sydney really had been terrible at vaulting. She barely cleared two meters, and that had taken her quite a few tries. She refused to try again after that day.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that we're okay, Tom. We miss you, and we're working to find a way to get you back home, but we're okay. And we need you to be okay, too. We need you to stay safe. _I_ need you to be safe, to come back home." She frowned slightly. "I think the most over-used phrase at Starfleet weddings is, 'you're my tether.' I think I've been to half a dozen weddings where one or both officers says that in their vows, talks about those damn second-classman space walks and how their partner makes them feel that confidence of being tethered. You were never my tether, Tom. You never tried to hold me down anywhere, never tried to keep me anywhere. You were… you were my guidance system. No," she corrected quickly. "You were my _compass_. You pointed me in the right direction, but made me figure out how to get there myself. Four years ago, someone put a magnet on that compass, and I got a little lost. I got a little turned around. I think I've figured out where I'm going now. It might not be the direction you pointed me in back when we met, but that happens. Make it home, Tom. We can plot a new course together, the three of us. I want to see where that takes us."


	55. 2375

Stardate 52018  
February 2375  
Hawaii, Earth

Tom's voice was running through B'Elanna's head as she ran through Ka'ū Forest on her recovery run.

He had sent her his personal logs with the first transmission they received from _Voyager_ , and for the first two weeks after they arrived, that data chip sat unacknowledged on her dresser. They sent letters back and forth—they received messages from _Voyager_ every nine days and a few hours—and she enjoyed that correspondence, enjoyed sending him stories of Izzy's antics and frustrations with her teaching schedule, enjoyed getting his stories of the Delta quadrant, and rolled her eyes at the holoprograms he ran with his friends. They answered each other's questions; her questions were mostly about what his days were like and the things he had seen, his questions generally more concerned with the people in their lives—what Izzy liked, if it was true that Nicki had joined Starfleet and _why_ , how his parents were, what his nieces and nephews were up to, if Sydney was still demanding and Jens still boring.

But that data chip with his personal logs… Even though they were married, the thought of going through someone else's personal logs felt… weird. Weird enough that she finally brought it up to Dr. Bayrote, which prompted a lot of annoying questions to 'explore how that made her feel' and 'understand why it made her uncomfortable' and a bunch of other phrases she rolled her eyes at. Finally, he reminded her that Tom had sent them to her on his own volition, so it was clear that listening to them wouldn't be an invasion of privacy. And then there was a lot of talk about how much they both had changed over the last four years and how having a common place of understanding would be key to figuring out how they could live together again when he got back home. "Realistically," Dr. Bayrote had asked, "how long is it going to take to find a way back home?"

"Barring any sort of undiscovered wormhole or them stumbling across a race that has perfected transwarp and is willing to share?" she asked dryly, earning a node from Bayrote. "Two years, at the earliest," she replied, the same thing she had told Owen and any other brass who asked. "Five is probably more likely."

"Then you have two to five years of imperfect modes of communication to get to know each other again before you're face-to-face," Bayrote had said. "Might as well start with the personal logs he sent you."

And so, she was currently working her way through his recordings.

She herself made at least a couple of sentences of annotation in her personal logs every night, often just a brief recounting of the events of the day, but he always had been much more sporadic about his entries, sometimes going weeks without a word, only to dictate long, rambling entries once he came back. He tended to use it like a therapist who didn't ask annoying questions, exploring his thoughts and feelings in those log entries.

She wasn't surprised that he had recorded long entries into his personal log almost every day of the first month _Voyager_ was in the Delta quadrant. He had been angry, mostly, but also sad and frustrated, and she had been angry, sad, and frustrated with him as she listened to those log entries. At first, she listened to his personal logs during every run she didn't do with Sydney, but apparently screaming in frustration as she listened to Tom railing at the computer about being stuck 70,000 light years from home on a ship he hadn't wanted to be on in the first place wasn't good for her speed work. Ulshanov told her she could listen on her recovery and long runs, but that she should be focusing on her run—and not her displaced husband—during speed and tempo runs.

She had had a few choice words for him for that comment; he had coached her for enough years that he hadn't even blinked at them. And by the next day, she acknowledged—to herself only—that he had a point. Since then, Tom had only kept her company on slower runs.

Which, to be honest, was the only time Tom could keep her company if he was running with her, so it worked.

 _*It's August first back home,*_ Tom was saying. She hadn't even realized that she had listened to seven months' worth of logs in the last seven weeks. _*Dr. Gault wasn't sure exactly when the baby would come, but it's sometime around now, which means I'm now a father. Probably. With a kid on the other side of the galaxy I might never meet. I wish I hadn't insisted on not finding out if it's a boy or a girl. Maybe if we knew what we were having, we would have started talking about names. Hell, while we're wishing for things we can't have, I wish I was home with them._

 _*Since we didn't have time to talk about names, I've been trying to guess what B'Elanna would name a baby. Naming a baby—naming another_ person _—isn't really something I've ever thought much about. Syd and Nicki used to talk about what they would name their kids. Of course, then Syd married Jens and Kajsa was named after his grandmother, but she eventually got around to Stephanie. And I have no idea where any of Nicki's kids' names came from, but they should consider themselves lucky that she decided against Ethyl and Orville. I never thought about it before. Kids, marriage… those were abstract ideas, things that future Tom would probably do, but the details about how that would happen were never really something I thought about._

_*And if B'Elanna had any ideas of what she would name kids, she never shared them with me. Even though we talked about having kids and did actively work to get pregnant—that part was fun, at least—it's like we never thought about that next step, about having a small person we would have to name and take care of. I've tried to guess what names B'Elanna would like. Probably nothing Klingon, unless she's gotten a lot more into Klingon culture in the last seven months. I don't know if there are any family names that are passed down in her family, but maybe she would name a girl Isela, after her grandmother. I would call her Izzy, and that would drive B'Elanna crazy, because that's not her name and we should call her by her name. As far as boys, though, I have no idea, other than not John. Gods, I hope she wouldn't name a boy after me. The last thing this universe needs is another Thomas Eugene Paris. I like the name Nathaniel. Nate. Nate Paris? Maybe that doesn't go as well as I thought._

_*I don't know why, but I feel like it's a girl. If, someday, my son is hearing this log, sorry, son. It's not that I wouldn't want a boy, wouldn't love a boy… I just… feel like it's a girl. She'll probably look like B'Elanna. I hope she looks like B'Elanna. Do quarter-Klingons still have ridges? I could probably ask the Doc, but he already acts like it's a bother every time I go into Sickbay, even when I'm doing routine maintenance on his program._

_*I hate that B'Elanna has to do this alone. Not just because I'm missing out on, well, everything. I don't want her to think of me the way she thinks of her father. I told her she wouldn't be doing this alone, and I hate more than anything that I lied to her. I know she's going to be a great mother. I know the idea of motherhood scared her, between her father leaving and how much she and her own mother fought, but she loves fiercely and completely. There's not a thing in this universe that is going to be able to harm our baby with B'Elanna watching over them. I'm glad that she's there for them even though I can't be. And I hope she forgives me for not being there for her.*_ He sounded like he wanted to say more, but the next thing B'Elanna heard was, _*End log.*_

She had stopped running without realizing it, and was further surprised by the sting of tears in her eyes. "I forgive you, Tom," she murmured, and she wondered if she hadn't fully forgiven him until that moment. "And I can't wait to see you as a father." To Izzy, and maybe someday, to another kid.

Two to five years. She could do that wait. They could do that wait.


	56. 2375

Stardate 52068  
March 2375  
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. B'Elanna Torres reminded the Dominion Technology class that they would be beginning the unit on sensors and antipolarons on Friday and to read the relevant sections in the technical manual before then, and then she dismissed the class and had to stop herself from running out of the room.

It was Wednesday, but more importantly, it was _Voyager_ letter day. The transmission should be coming through a little after noon, give or take an hour, and class ended at 1130.

Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu—Nu, as she liked to be called, as she complained that humans couldn't quite say her name properly, another thing Torres sympathized with—fell in step behind her as they headed from Scotty Hell to the CRC. "I've been making progress with the primary literature search," Nu offered. "I hope Seven of Nine wrote back with answers to my questions, though."

"I'm sure she will," Torres replied absently. "She seems very… efficient." Nu's first task with Pathfinder was to do a review of Federation data on Borg transwarp conduits. Seven of Nine, the former Borg drone who had become part of _Voyager_ 's crew a year or so before, had tried to modify _Voyager_ 's warp drive to create a transwarp conduit and nearly caused a warp core breach; Joe Carey was less than excited to give the technology another try, but Torres wasn't willing to let any potential avenue go unexplored. She wasn't sure what she, a second classman propulsion major, and a small team of engineers and mechanics could come up with that a former Borg drone hadn't already tried - a former Borg drone who had the collective memory of the millions or billions of Borg drones who opened transwarp conduits on a regular basis - but it seemed the obvious first place to look when it came to finding a way to modify _Voyager_ 's engines to get them home faster.

Well, other than putting Nu on a research project to explore ways to make dilithium more efficient, but she was sure the Xahean would walk out of Pathfinder never to be seen again if she even suggested giving her a dilithium project.

Torres felt a wave of disappointment when she entered her office and saw her bare desk. When transmissions came in while she was teaching or at home, they left a PADD with her letters on her desk. _Nothing to worry about_ , she scolded herself. Although the timing of the transmissions was inexact, they weren't expecting it to arrive until 1215, and it wasn't yet 1145. They had time before the communications section would start investigating what was going on, and she had her own work she needed to be doing. In addition to Nu's research on transwarp, she had two other teams working with members of the Theoretical Propulsion Group on other possibilities—slipstream and something involving quantum warp theory, which was too much like physics and not enough like engineering and always gave Torres a headache whenever she tried understanding it—and brilliant but socially awkward ensign with a Ph.D. in engineering physics who was working on artificial wormholes.

A lot of possibilities, a lot of projects, and Torres wasn't doing any of it. She was teaching classes and reading reports and growing increasingly antsy for unknown reasons. Unknown reasons that she knew she should discuss with Dr. Bayrote, but she wasn't that antsy yet.

She knew she had two choices: she could sit around and drum her fingers on her desk until the transmission made it through from _Voyager_ , or she could get some work done. Given the constraints she already on her time, it was hardly a difficult decision; she couldn't afford to waste any time drumming her fingers, not if she wanted to get out of the office at a reasonable hour, get Izzy home, fed, and to sleep, and prepare her lessons for the next day. And with that in mind, she began to work through reports.

As she often did, she lost track of time, not realizing the hours that had gone by until Nu knocked on her open office door. "I ran into something I need your help with, Lieutenant," the cadet said, a PADD in her hand. Torres automatically reached for it, and Nu handed it over.

"Is this from Seven of Nine?" she asked, briefly scanning the text.

"No, I haven't heard anything from the comms people yet, sir," Nu said. "This is from my literature search of Borg transwarp conduits. There's something about that Borg threat from a year and a half ago, but when I tried to access the data, it's classified."

Torres blinked back the memories of her anxiety and fear, the long days at work repairing ships after the attack that had ended as abruptly as it began, the deep-buried curiosity about why the Borg hadn't stormed Earth as they had feared or how they had been stopped. "I'll look into it when I get a chance," she promised, copying the data onto her own PADD before handed the original over. She glanced at her chronometer; after 1500. The transmission from _Voyager_ should have come through, although they knew they had a several hour window on either end. "No word from comms?" she repeated.

"No, sir," Nu replied, blinking her inner eyelids. Torres frowned and tapped her combadge.

"Torres to Barclay," she hailed. When she had been given the future propulsion projects with Pathfinder's sudden and abrupt growth, the awkward lieutenant had been put in charge of communications engineering.

* _W-we haven't gotten an-anything yet, Lieutenant,*_ Barclay replied without a greeting. Before Torres could ask if they had started looking into it, her combadge chirped with another message.

* _Cohen to Harkins, Barclay, and Torres,*_ the stellar cartographer said. * _Can you come to the Pathfinder astrometrics lab?*_

Both Torres and Nu left her office, the cadet peeling off to go to her workspace in the propulsion engineering lab and Torres heading for the turbolift. She ran into Commander Harkins on the way, and he raised his eyebrows in greeting. "Any idea what this is about?" he asked.

"No, sir," she replied. "We were supposed to get a transmission today. It's late." He frowned, and she wondered if he was thinking the same thing she was—that Cohen had an explanation for why they hadn't heard from _Voyager_ yet, and it wasn't good.

With the influx of data from _Voyager_ , the astrometrics and stellar cartography sections of Pathfinder had grown almost as much as the engineering sections, and with that growth came a new lab, one with enough space for everyone and a screen almost twice as large as the one in the old lab. Currently, that giant screen was displaying the communication network they had come to depend on over the last three and a half months, Lt. Cohen and a group of officers and cartography techs up at the controls. "Cohen," Harkins said as a greeting. The stellar cartographer glanced behind her and held up a finger before turning back to her tech with a few more instructions.

"Sorry about that, sir," Cohen said a minute later as she joined them. "Things have been really busy here for the last few hours."

"What's going on, Lieutenant?" Commander Harkins asked.

"I-is this about th-the transmission?" Lt. Barclay asked. "From _Voyager_?"

"Yes," Cohen said with single nod. She gestured at the screen behind her. "We're not receiving anything from the Hirogen network. Nothing from _Voyager_ , nothing from test signals… It just went dark."

"Were w-we able to receive any messages from _Voyager_ before it-it went dark?" Torres was glad Barclay asked so she didn't have to.

"No," Cohen said, glancing apologetically at Torres. "We don't know when or why it went dark, either. We didn't detect anything until we didn't get the transmission today."

Harkins, Barclay, and Torres all looked at each other and then back at Cohen. "Does Admiral Paris know?" Torres asked. The sudden pallor to Lt. Cohen's face was enough of an answer.

"I was hoping you could do that, sir," Cohen admitted. Torres rolled her eyes and sighed, but didn't waste her time arguing.

"Torres to Admiral Paris," she said, tapping on her combadge.

* _Go ahead, Lieutenant,*_ he replied.

"Sir, I'm here with Commander Harkins and Lieutenants Barclay and Cohen. We have bad news. It'll be easier to show you in person. We're in the Pathfinder astrometrics lab."

* _I'll be there in five minutes. Paris out.*_

Torres glanced around at her fellow officers, then focused on Cohen. "You're going to have to brief him," she said forcefully. "He's not scary."

"You want _me_ to be the one to tell him that we lost our only means of communication with his son?" Cohen asked in disbelief.

"You told _me_ that we lost our only means of communication with _my husband!_ " Torres exclaimed, and Cohen's already nervous pallor went a few shades lighter, her eyes wide with surprise and a little fear.

"I am _so sorry_!" she said quickly. "I didn't even think about—" Torres cut her off with an impatient wave of her hand. She didn't blame Cohen for the Hirogen network going dark, after all, and she actually appreciated that Cohen thought of her as more of a colleague than a _Voyager_ family member.

And now that she had time to think about it and process it, she realized she wasn't even surprised that the network had failed, and that she had been expecting this since the first transmission went through. She was disappointed for sure, but not surprised.

Admiral Paris appeared a few minutes later. "Commander, lieutenants," he greeted, nodding at each in turn before his eyes settled on Harkins. "I understand there's a problem?"

"Yes, Admiral," Commander Harkins said with a grave nod. "I think Lt. Cohen is the best to explain it."

Owen's eyebrows rose expectantly as he turned to Cohen, who looked like she was going to faint. "At ease, Lieutenant," he said. "Let's hear it."

"Yes, sir," she said quickly. "Uh, Lt. Barclay asked us to do a diagnostic of the Hirogen network. The transmission from _Voyager_ didn't come in on time, and the Dominion network checked out on their diagnostics." She went on to explain, in more detail than necessary, the diagnostics they ran and the how they discovered that the network was dark.

"Do you know what happened?" Paris asked.

"No, sir," she said with a shake of her head. "I have techs seeing if we can get a view of the closest node with the existing sensors we have in the sector and the sensors the Romulans gave us access to, but we haven't gotten anything yet. We don't even know if the node is still here or not. We still don't know how the network was powered. Is powered? There's a lot we don't know. Sir."

"Then let's take a closer look."

"Sir?" Cohen asked, confused.

"The closest node," he explained. "It's not far from Federation space. A team can go take a closer look."

"Sir, it's a lot closer to Romulan space," Harkins pointed out. "They are our allies now. We can ask them to take a look for us."

Owen raised his eyebrows. "They may be our allies _for now_ , Commander," he said. "But that doesn't mean I'm ready to share _everything_ with them. Lt. Cohen," he said, turning to the cartographer. "What is our closest station to the node?"

"Uh, DS5, sir," she replied quickly. Paris nodded and turned back to Harkins.

"Coordinate with Captain Jobe to get a team of engineers out to that node. Let's see if there's anything left there. Lt. Barclay." He frowned slightly as he turned to the engineer. "Did any of the transmission come through?"

"No, sir," Barclay replied. "I-I'm sorry, sir."

Owen nodded once, then turned to Torres. "Are you and Izzy coming over for dinner tonight?"

She hadn't planned on it, but nodded anyway. "We'll be there," she promised.

That night, after a dinner of disappointed quiet, after B'Elanna had put Izzy to bed and finalized her lesson plans for the next day, she again stared out to the stars from the lanai of the apartment. She grabbed her PADD and opened up the dictation program, and began a new message.

"Hey, Tom," she started. "I don't know when I'm going to get the opportunity to send this. We lost contact with you today."


	57. 2377

Stardate 54476  
November 2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager_ _  
_Alpha Quadrant

_The Hirogen's dark eyes shone with a gleeful malice Paris didn't have words for as he raised his rifle. His finger began to tighten on the trigger—_

Tom Paris awoke with a start, the nightmare still burning in his mind. Nightmares were nothing new to him; he had always had them, long before there had been anything in his life that was truly nightmare-inducing. Nicki had explained that to him once; he had been seventeen or eighteen and woke from a nightmare in the middle of the night. He had gone down to the kitchen to get a glass of water—or tea, or whiskey, or something else—and got his second fright of the night at the unexpected sight of his sister, sitting in the living room with an infant Ainsley and a PADD, studying a neurology text for medical school. She and Jason had had a fight and she had retreated to the Paris house to get away from it. That happened a lot in the early days of their marriage, long, bitter fights that came from getting married at 20 to a 23—24? He never could remember how old Jason was—year-old medical student, then becoming a medical student herself, having a baby, and having a husband starting his surgical training. Alicia had always been as quietly tolerant of her children's missteps as flights of fancy, and had no problem with Nicki coming over—with or without Ainsley—whenever she needed a break from her marriage.

Nicki had always been stubborn, and had found her match in Jason. Which was good—it seemed like it was only that mutual stubbornness that kept each of them from walking away from that marriage in those first six or so years. He was pretty sure it took Nicki graduating from medical school and beginning pediatrics training for them to settle in together and figure out how to be happy in their marriage.

That night, Nicki had been reading about the neurology of sleep disorders. Knowing sleep would be hard to come by again, Tom had replicated both of them some tea and joined her in the living room. She had explained that people tended to always have the same kind of dream, whether those were happy or psychedelic or sexual or nightmares. He had asked if there was anything in that text about how to change his default dream setting.

He certainly remembered the Hirogen network going down. It had actually happened nine days before Pathfinder realized, as they were downloading the latest letters from Pathfinder. The Hirogen hadn't been too happy with their unauthorized use of their network and collapsed the containment field around the singularity, shutting down the entire network halfway through their download. Paris had gotten B'Elanna's letter musing about whether or not to allow Ainsley to add Izzy to the U6 girls' spring soccer team she coached in Denver, but Harry had been devastated that he hadn't gotten the latest from his parents.

And then there was the hunt.

One minute, the Hirogen were boarding the ship, and Captain Janeway ordered everyone to remove the rank from their uniforms. She kept hers on; she was the captain, but she refused to allow any other member of her crew be hunted just because of his or her rank. She had stood up to those Hirogen twice her size, her chin held stubbornly high as she refused to back down. Not for the first time since they had been stranded in the Delta quadrant, he understood how and why officers could have undying loyalty to their captains.

He would have followed Captain Janeway into hell. And when the Hirogen took over the ship, they all did.

The next thing he knew, he was on the holodeck, in the uniform of an American GI during the Second World War. Harry had told him once the Hirogen problem was taken care of that almost three and a half months had gone by. He had no memories of those months and hadn't believed him until he had checked three different chronometers, all of which confirmed what Harry had said. He had gone from March to June without realizing it.

And then the nightmares started, and he realized that he had some sort of memories of those months, buried somewhere deep down in his head. And none of those memories were good, nor were the dreams he saw them in. He rarely slept more than ninety minutes at a time for weeks, and it was pretty obvious to everyone around him. He tried asking the Doctor if he could prescribe something that would prevent him from dreaming, but the EMH said it didn't work that way. He did, however, give him a modified cortical stimulator that preventing his consciousness from being aware of the dreams. He apparently wasn't the only one on the ship who needed one. Tom slept with that on for the next year.

As hard as the next few months were on everyone—they had to practically rebuild the inside of their ship, for as much damage as the Hirogen had done to it while trying to turn it into one giant holodeck—nobody was more affected than Harry Kim. The crew had to deal with the fact that they had three and a half months of missing memories, but Harry had seen all of it, had seen his crewmates, friends, lover been turned into play things for the Hirogen, had seen the Doctor patch them up only to send them back into the fight, had worked with the Hirogen to help them expand the holodeck and create new hunts. And his role in it had been his fault. He had been in Engineering when the Hirogen came aboard, and like the rest of the crew, had taken off his pip and tossed it away before they could identify who was important and high-ranking. The Hirogen had come into Engineering and demanded an engineer; Sue Nicoletti, being the senior engineer on duty, had stepped forward to protect her team, the same way Captain Janeway had for her crew, but Harry had interjected, stating that if they wanted someone who knew the ship, he was not only trained in engineering, but was the operations officer and nobody knew the ship the way he did.

He thought he was saving his girlfriend from some unknown horror, and instead, condemned her to the same neural inhibitor and holographic hunts as the rest of the crew, and he had to watch it happen.

He had started drinking—synthehol when he was on board, the real thing whenever he could find it on shore leave and trade outposts—and distanced himself from his colleagues, friends, and even Sue. She had been at her wit's end watching him spiral, and confided in Joe, who in turn confided in Paris. Tom himself was very experienced in both drinking and dealing with friends who were drinking—outside of competition months, Nova Squadron was renowned at the Academy for being a drinking team with a flying problem—and between the three of them, finally managed an intervention without getting the command team or the Doctor involved.

On paper, Tom and Harry had a lot in common. They both went to the right prep schools, both had a lot of pressure from an overbearing parent—Tom's dad, Harry's mom, although Harry dealt with the pressure a lot better than Tom had—both met women they wanted to marry while at the Academy, and if Tom had been a bit younger or hadn't married B'Elanna and started a family, he probably would have been closer to Harry than Joe. Watching Harry decompensate like that was like watching a younger brother—or a better version of himself—and he wondered then, as he did now, how he would have fared if he had been the one to watch his friends suffer and die.

"Tom?" He turned to see B'Elanna looking at him with one eye open in a squint. "What time is it?"

"No idea," he said. "Go back to sleep."

She yawned and blinked. "Nightmare?" she murmured.

"The Hirogens didn't play nice," he replied. "It was hard losing the network and our letters back and forth, but if we could have avoided dealing with them by destroying that network the first time we saw it, I would have done that. Sorry."

"No need to apologize," she murmured. He had told her when they re-established contact about the Hirogen and how they had been hunted. There was no need re-hashing that now, not when she was telling her story and definitely not at whatever time it was in the middle of the night when they both should have been sleeping. "Are you going to be able to get back to sleep, or am I going to have to wake up?"

"I should be fine," he assured her. A few seconds later, he asked, "Do Nicki and Jason still fight?"

She opened an eye questioningly and then sighed. "They argue, usually for fun. They don't fight much, but when they do, they really fight." She sighed again. "Why?"

"They used to fight all the time, for the first five or six years they were married."

"They married young," she murmured.

"So did we," he reminded her with a chuckle.

"Yes, and we fought all the time."

"Not like they did."

"I threw an alarm clock at your head."

He chuckled. "You threw it at the _wall._ "

"I was aiming for your head. You ducked."

"Quick reflexes," he bragged. A minute later, he said, "I thought they were going to get a divorce. Nicki and Jason. Even after Ainsley was born. Every time I saw them together, I thought they hated each other. Dad told to her she should leave him. Mom was… Mom was her usual always-supportive self. She said Nicki was an adult and could make her own decisions and could live with those decisions. Whatever they were."

B'Elanna sighed in defeat. "Why are we discussing your sister at," she rolled over and looked at the chronometer, "zero-four in the morning?"

"I don't know," he said honestly, and she sighed again.

"The biggest fight between them was leading up to her Starfleet obligation ending," B'Elanna said. "Which just happened to coincide with her deployment. Which just happened to coincide with my next deployment."


	58. 2375

Stardate 52324  
June 2375  
Hawaii, Earth

There were a dozen three- to six-year-olds running around the beach, and B'Elanna Torres felt ready to pull her hair out.

Izzy's birthday was still a few days off, but since it fell on a Tuesday, they were having her birthday party early. And turning four, Izzy felt that she deserved a real party, with her friends from school and daycare and the soccer team Ainsley coached in Denver. And the next thing she knew, B'Elanna was spending her Sunday afternoon serving cake and ice cream—and beer to the parents—while the adults all watched to make sure none of the kids drowned in the ocean. Some parents paying closer attention to their kids than others, as always happened at these parties.

It didn't escape B'Elanna's notice that between soccer, school, daycare, and the kids of the few friends B'Elanna did have—such as the Careys—Izzy had more friends than she did. Or that for as much as she barely tolerated these events, Tom would have loved them.

After the presents were opened, the cake consumed, and the guests back to where they came from, the family descended. First it was the teenagers; Ainsley was already there, having been busy documenting the party with her holoimager. She called Kajsa and Navi over when she was done; Sydney was leaving the next day for a tactical survey of various starbases along the Romulan border and was taking Kajsa, which would occupy most of her summer holiday, and Navi would be leaving on Thursday to Vulcan to meet some members of her long-dead grandfather's family for the first time. The three of them liked to hang out together in Hawaii, mostly because B'Elanna usually left them alone to do whatever they wanted. They were pretty low-maintenance; Kajsa and Navi kept Ainsley's more wild tendencies tamped down, and she was usually content to take holos as the three of them sat out on the beach or paddled out into the ocean when it was calm.

The three 15-year-olds greeted B'Elanna and Izzy before setting out for the beach, and B'Elanna and Izzy soon followed, Izzy playing with one of her new toys and B'Elanna reading a novel. She couldn't remember the last time she had just sat on the beach with a novel; certainly before she had graduated from her Master's program in May, before they had moved back to Earth, before a Jem'Hadar ship had showed up in the classified space dock at Utopia Planitia almost two and a half years before. She knew there were other things she could be doing—she was at a fun step of rebuilding the impulse engines of the S-class shuttle, for one—but today, she was going to have a lazy Sunday afternoon on the beach.

And then Nicki commed. _*Hey, can I come over?*_ she asked without any preamble.

"Would it make any difference if I said no?" B'Elanna asked dryly.

 _*I might feel a little bad, but no,*_ Nicki replied. * _I'll be there in a few.*_

Nicki must have gone through the apartment on her way to the beach from the transporter station, a brown beer bottle now in hand. "Thanks," she said as a greeting, collapsing on the sand next to B'Elanna and accepting a hug from Izzy. "I needed a break." She had clearly been crying, her eyes red and puffy and her fair skin oddly mottled.

"My beach is everyone else's beach, apparently," B'Elanna said with a shrug. She waited a few seconds, then asked, "Want to talk about it?"

"Not really," Nicki replied as she took a long pull from the beer bottle. "Is my daughter here?"

"They're down there," B'Elanna said, gesturing vaguely to where her two tall blond nieces and her shorter, darker sister were trying to kick water onto each other off in the distance. Nicki gave a nod of satisfaction.

"Good. Kajsa and Navi'll keep her out of trouble." She readjusted herself on the sand and sighed. "Jason and I are fighting," she admitted. "Have been for… a while. Weeks? A month? I don't even know anymore. And it's so fucking tedious."

"About what?"

"Couples fight, B'Elanna. It's part of being married."

B'Elanna looked at her incredulously. "Right, because I asked for my husband to get sent to the Delta quadrant after less than a year of marriage. Just so we wouldn't _fight_. Kahless, Nicki. I don't even know if Tom is still _alive_ , so I don't want to want to hear your sanctimonious preaching about what being married is."

"Sorry," Nicki said, rubbing her forehead. "I've been a little on edge. This fucking fight."

B'Elanna didn't even realize that Nicki and Jason fought, not for real. They liked to argue playfully amongst themselves, both stubborn even when they knew the other person was right, always honing their debate skills even after the argument was lost. "What about?"

"My Starfleet obligation," Nicki said with a sigh. "It's up in September."

 _Four years already_. B'Elanna couldn't believe it had been that long since that conversation in her hospital room right after Izzy was born. "He wants you to resign?"

"No!" Nicki said with a laugh. "And that's what's so fucking frustrating! He'll support me with whichever decision I make. He just… needs me to make a decision. And I _can't_. And the constant fighting about me needing to make a fucking decision isn't helping."

B'Elanna was about to tease her about her excessive use of old swear words when Nicki's PADD chimed with an incoming message. "Syd," she said with a sigh as she read it. "She wants to know where I am."

"Tell her to come on over," B'Elanna said, rolling her eyes. "Everyone else has already today."

Sydney came over about twenty minutes later with a birthday present for Izzy. "I'm sorry I'll miss your actual birthday on Tuesday, Izzy," she said as Izzy ripped into the wrapping paper.

"A Gravingingoo!" she exclaimed as she opened the package, immediately beginning to play with the oddly-shaped gravity toy.

"Izzy," B'Elanna said warningly. "What do you say to Aunt Sydney?"

"Thank you, Aunt Sydney!" Izzy replied, her attention unwavering from the toy. Sydney chuckled and shrugged.

"She liked playing with Alex's, so I figured she'd like one of her own," she explained to B'Elanna.

"The last thing she needs is more toys," B'Elanna replied with a sigh. "But, thank you." Sydney gave an understanding smile in reply before turning to her sister.

"Nick, can we go somewhere to talk?"

"Just fucking talk here," Nicki snapped. "I am so goddamn tired of people pulling me aside to 'talk.' I'm fucking done with it. And everyone in this family knows everyone else's goddamn business anyway, so you might as well cut out the middle man and just say whatever you came here to say."

B'Elanna blinked in surprise, and even Sydney looked momentarily taken aback. "Fighting with Jason again?" Sydney asked a few seconds later.

"Go to hell," Nicki snapped.

"Well, it's your lucky day, because I'm on my way to the Neutral Zone tomorrow," Sydney said dryly. She thrust a PADD into her sister's hands. "And you're leaving for the Alteran Expanse in a week."

"What?" Nicki demanded, taking the PADD and furiously skimming it. "But my Starfleet obligation ends in September! That's not enough time for a 90 day deployment!"

"Well, you didn't turn in your resignation, so tough shit," Sydney replied. "The _Gettysburg_ was the best I could do for you," she added softly.

"What are you talking about?" Nicki asked.

"Your name was on the list to go into Cardassian space," Sydney explained. "I redirected you to the _Gettysburg_ , which will be doing a patrol mission with a Romulan fleet. No direct conflict. It's as safe as a wartime deployment can get. Get your Neutral Zone medal, get a campaign medal, come back to your kids."

"I don't give a fuck about medals!" Nicki exclaimed in frustration.

"I know that," Sydney replied, still eerily calm.

"And who are you to just…shuffle people's deployments around?" Nicki demanded. "I didn't ask you to do that!"

"No, you didn't," Sydney replied, somehow remaining calm despite her sister's yelling. B'Elanna glanced down the beach to see the three teenagers still clearly unaware of the fight that was going on between Sydney and Nicki. "But I'm the adjuvant to the Chief of Starfleet Operations, and shuffling assets around is what I do. So I did."

"Fuck you, Sydney," Nicki snapped. "You never had any faith in me, never believed I could take care of myself. Poor little Nicki needs her big sister to protect her. Fuck that."

"That's not what anyone thinks," Sydney assured her. "But we do know that you joined Starfleet to be a pediatrician, not a solider." Her lips tightened into a thin line, then she said, her voice low, "Growing up with Dad's expectations was hard. Take the good you can get out of being a Paris where you can find it."

B'Elanna blinked in surprise; she had never heard Sydney or Nicki complain about their childhood or pressure from Owen. Tom had talked about it all the time, had regaled her with stories of Owen scolding him not to cry and how that made him cry harder, how he had spent most of his time at home as a kid in his room as if that door could protect him from his father's world. He still bristled from admonishments as an adult, and she was sure he had developed his dry, depreciating wit as a way to project to others that he didn't care what they thought about him. Did that same pressure turn Sydney into the competitive, demanding person she was? Was Nicki's light personality and tendency to argue about things she didn't really care about as much of a defense mechanism as Tom's humor?

"And what about my colleagues who _didn't_ have the _privilege_ of growing up as a Paris?" Nicki demanded. "You move me to a milk run deployment, you put somebody else on a ship going into Cardassian space. Somebody who probably already went on a deployment, with how much they've been shuffling us in and out of Starfleet Medical."

" _You're my sister_ ," Sydney said emphatically. "I love you, and I love those four kids you've got and want to make sure their mom comes back to them." Nicki crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes, ready with a response, but Sydney didn't give her the opportunity. "I thought my brother was dead, for four years. And knowing now that Tom is alive doesn't take away how much that hurt. I won't go through that again. _I can't go through that again_. So, please, Nick, just do this for me."

"This _fucking_ family," Nicki spat. "Everything's been fucked since _Voyager_ , and not even finding out that Tom is still alive has made a goddamn difference. We're all so fucking afraid of _everything_ , as if we're all going to die if we as much as let anybody out of our sights."

The sudden sound of teenaged laughter stopped all three adults, all turning to see Navi running toward them. "I'm going to get us something to drink!" she exclaimed as she run past them toward the apartment.

"Get me my beer!" Ainsley called after her.

"And that's my daughter," Nicki muttered. "I'm right here, Ainsley."

"Hi, Mom!" Ainsley said with a wave.

"Is she seriously getting them beer?" Sydney demanded to B'Elanna.

"Probably," B'Elanna said with a shrug. "It's synthehol. They're 15."

"Sydney was too good of a girl to drink synth beer when she was 15," Nicki said, rolling her eyes.

"You had the market cornered on rebellion," Sydney shot back. "Didn't leave much room for the rest of us. And now _your daughter_ —"

"Oh, so Kajsa drinking the occasional synthale is now Ainsley's fault?" Nicki demanded.

"Well, if you had raised your daughter—"

"Now it's _my_ fault?" Nicki interrupted.

"Both of you can shut up," Ainsley said, rolling her eyes. "It's _synthale_. Gods. We're not doing drugs or having wild orgies on the beach or stealing the family shuttle and flying it into lakes. Get a little perspective for once. And you've been giving us synth wine at holiday dinners for _years_." Both women had the good graces to look embarrassed at the argument.

Navi re-appeared a few minutes later, three brown bottles in one hand and a plate with a piece of cake balanced in the other. "Congratulations on your first round of Academy entry exams," Nicki said to Navi. "Your mom was bragging about you in clinic."

"Thanks," Navi said with a grin.

"How'd you do?" Sydney asked.

"This time next year, we'll be calling her Cadet Torres," Nicki answered for her.

"I still have another round to go before I'm accepted for plebe summer," Navi protested.

"Ooh, cake!" Kajsa exclaimed when she noticed Navi.

"You said you didn't want any!" Navi protested, her attention diverted from the adults and toward trying to keep the plate away from Kajsa. She thrust the hand holding the bottles toward her instead. "Take your beer and leave me alone!" The three teenagers left as they had appeared, suddenly and with laughter, both Kajsa and Ainsley trying to steal Navi's piece of cake and Navi trying her hardest to run away while defending it from them.

Sydney watched them for a long minute. "I'm glad for them," she said. "Ainsley and Navi. Moving here, getting to spend time with them… It's been good for Kajsa. They've brought her out of her shell, make her relax when she needs it." She turned to Nicki and sighed. "I know I'm a lot like Dad, and I know that's a hard way to raise kids, and I don't want my kids to grow up like that. I want them to be _kids_. I don't… I don't want Kajsa to grow up like _me._ "

"You're just fine," Nicki protested. "I mean, you're _weird_ , but we love you the way you are anyway."

Sydney chuckled and rolled her eyes. "Thanks, darling sister of mine," she said dryly, and Nicki laughed and gave her a hug.

"I'll go on the _Gettysburg_ if that's what you want," she promised.

"I want you to stop fighting with your husband and taking it out on the rest of us," Sydney shot back.

Before B'Elanna could tease them about the way Paris' fought and how quickly they made up, her own PADD chirped. She pulled it out and activated the comm. "This is Lt. Torres," she said.

_*Sir, this is Crewman Maule, I'm on staff duty at CRC. Uh, we have a planet in the Chin'toka system with a Dominion communication relay station—*_

"AR-558," she interrupted. "It's been off and on for months now."

 _*Yes, sir. A crew has been holding it, and, long story short, they need you to lead an engineering team to tap into the station. The_ Veracruz _will be departing from McKinley Station at 1100 San Francisco time tomorrow, and they need you and your team on it.*_


	59. 2375

Stardate 52324  
June 2375  
Hawaii, Earth

As soon as Crewman Maule was off the comm, Nicki turned to Sydney. "Get me on that ship," she demanded.

"What?" Sydney asked.

"The _Veracruz_ ," she explained. "You shuffle assets, so shuffle me onto the _Veracruz_."

"The point of shuffling assets was to get you _away_ from the Dominion, not send you into a contested system!" Sydney exclaimed.

"You're sending B'Elanna into a contested system," Nicki pointed out.

"The CRC is," Sydney argued. "Not me."

"But you shuffle assets, so you could shuffle her away from it, if you wanted. But you won't."

"B'Elanna's an expert in Dominion tech!"

"And I'm an expert in hybrid medicine!" Nicki shot back. "You are sending a Klingon/human hybrid engineer into a war zone. Sounds like a good place to be sending someone with experience in treating hybrid injuries. You know, in case that expert in Dominion tech is injured."

"I'm not planning on needing medical attention," B'Elanna interjected. Both ignored her.

"Mom will never speak to me again if I put both of you on the same ship heading into Dominion space," Sydney pointed out.

"You know that's not even close to being true."

"Will both of you just _stop_ for a minute?" That got their attention, both women turning to face B'Elanna. "I don't care what ship you put Nicki on," she said to Sydney. Nicki opened her mouth to protest, but B'Elanna's raised hand stopped her. "I need to get on the comm and get ready for this mission. Keep arguing if you want, just make sure my daughter doesn't wander off or drown." Both sets of blue eyes went to Izzy, clearly having forgotten that the preschooler was there, but B'Elanna was already halfway to the apartment complex.

She threw a shirt on over her bathing suit on the way to her office and immediately got Commander Harkins on the comm. * _Sorry to have ruined your Sunday afternoon,*_ Harkins said. He was in uniform and at work at—she checked the comm; 2000 San Francisco time—so his evening was clearly more ruined than hers. * _There's been a crew holding AR-558 for a few months now. They've tried sending engineering teams from Starbase 371 to access the relay station, but the few times they've been able to get people or supplies to the planetoid, they've been overrun by Jem'Hadar before they've been able to access the data in the comm node.*_

She nodded; they've been able to piggy-back messages through the Dominion network, but as far as getting anything out of it—including the messages the Dominion sends through it—they haven't been able to do remotely. This was the only relay station that the Federation-Klingon Alliance had managed to gain control of, and the constant bombardment around it had made it impossible to do anything with it since it had been taken. "What's changed?" she asked. She hadn't heard anything about the Dominion backing away from Chin'toka or the relay station, but she also hadn't been looking for it, especially after they lost the Hirogen network and were no longer depending on the Dominion network to talk to _Voyager_.

* _A lot of tactical movement I don't fully understand,*_ Harkins admitted. * _Enough so that the_ Defiant _is on its way to AR-558 now to drop off supplies. With any luck, that'll sustain them long enough for the_ Veracruz _to get there with replacement troops and your team.*_ He frowned. * _Holding the station isn't your concern,*_ he said. * _There'll be a few hundred ground troops for that. Your team will be responsible for accessing the station and tapping into the Dominion comms.*_

"How many on my team?" she asked.

* _As many as you need,*_ he replied promptly. * _Admiral Huang at Operations has stated that this is his top priority. You can pull from anyone at Pathfinder, the CRC, anywhere you need.*_

She frowned at the name of the Chief of Starfleet Operations. "Sir, Commander Wyland is at my house now. She didn't say anything about this."

 _*She might not have known yet,*_ Harkins said. * _I think things are moving really fast on this one. I was notified about thirty seconds before I told them to comm you.*_

Torres glanced at her office door, even though she assumed Sydney was still down on the beach, and then back to her monitor. "I'll get you a list of names within ten minutes," she promised, then paused. "I want Cadet Nu on this one."

 _*I'm not sure ground combat is the best place for a cadet,*_ Harkins said with a frown of his own.

"She's taken both Dominion Tech and Advanced Communication Networks," Torres reminded him. "She's more qualified than half the officers either Barclay or I has."

* _She doesn't have combat experience,*_ Harkins replied. * _Is she even phaser qualified? And isn't she working with Reg on the transwarp probe?*_

"Fewer than half the officers and crewmen at Pathfinder have combat experience," she pointed out. "I don't know if she's qualified on the hand phaser or rifle yet, but she can get qualified on the _Veracruz_ on the way if she's not. And they're at a good point in the transwarp probe project that Lt. Barclay can run experiments without her. It's not as if I'm taking him on a ground combat mission."

* _That's a good call,*_ Harkins agreed. Barclay was a great engineer; a soldier he was not. * _If you think Nu is the best person for the team and you can get her combat ready in the time it takes the_ Veracruz _to get to Chin'toka, I'm not going to stand in your way,*_ he finally said. * _Get me the rest of the names as soon as possible. I'll see you off tomorrow morning. I'll probably be here all night, so don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything.*_

"I appreciate it, sir," she replied before signing off. She went through her mental directory of the officers, techs, and mechanics she had worked with on Dominion or communications projects and quickly compiled a team of twenty-nine people, hoping she'd be able to get at least twenty of them.

She sent the list to Commander Harkins, then headed back outside to talk to Sydney about the mission. She was surprised to see the entire extended Paris family—and Navi—gathered in and around one of the public gazebos. Most of the kids, under the supervision of the teenagers, were down by the water, with both Ainsley and Kajsa shooting occasional concerned glances back at the adults. Owen was the first to notice her. "Did you get everything arraigned with Commander Harkins?" he asked. She nodded.

"I sent him my list for the team," she replied. "I hope he can get hold of everyone tonight."

He nodded in reply, and then Alicia spoke. "What time are you bringing Izzy by in the morning?"

"Probably between zero-nine and 10," she replied.

"Kajsa and I take off on the _Berlin_ tomorrow at zero-eight," Sydney chimed in. "We'll be gone by the time you get there, but Steph and Alex will be there. Jens comes in on Wednesday night and will take the kids to Norway for the rest of summer holiday."

"I'll be going with you on the _Veracruz_ ," Nicki added, looking meaningfully at Sydney, who gave a heavy sigh and rolled her eyes. Owen's face didn't register any surprise at the suggestion, so Nicki had probably outlined her arguments for changing ships while B'Elanna had been in the apartment. Alicia's eyes still narrowed, though, and she turned to Jason.

"What do you think about Nicki going on the _Veracruz_?" she asked. B'Elanna guessed that she had already outlined her arguments against and was now trying to draw Jason into the fight.

"She's one of 38 board-certified physician hybridologists in the Federation and has advanced training in trauma support," he commented. "From a medical standpoint, she'd be the physician I would pick to go along if you had a diverse crew in a potential trauma situation, especially when that diverse crew includes a hybrid officer in a key position for mission success. I don't think Starfleet has anyone else who meets her qualifications."

"And from a personal point of view?" Alicia pressed. Jason shook his head.

"She's out for a 90-day deployment regardless," he pointed out. "Whether she gets on the _Gettysburg_ or _Veracruz_ , I'm going to have to cut back on my hours at the hospital, reduce my call schedule, and do the work of two parents by myself. And I _know_ you're not trying to suggest that I would _ever_ tell Nicki what to do in her professional life," he said emphatically. "I am damn proud to have such a brilliant and driven wife, and I would never dream of holding her back. We're partners and we support each other's careers and decisions. That's the way it's been for 17 years and the way it'll be until she drives me to an early grave." He looked over at Nicki and gave her a wink before turning back to his mother-in-law. "Quite frankly, I'm just happy that she actually made a decision," he said dryly. Nicki smacked him playfully on his thigh, but her hand remained there after he stopped talking.

Sydney sighed in defeat. "I'll go to the office and make the change," she said reluctantly. "But that means you'll be stuck on the _Veracruz_ for the duration of the 90 days, regardless of how long B'Elanna's mission at AR-558 takes," she added warningly.

"Thanks, Syd, I wasn't able to figure that out on my own," Nicki said sarcastically. She turned to her mother and sighed. "I'll be _fine_ , Mom."

"For the record, I'm not happy about where any of my children are going," Alicia said. "Sydney going to the Neutral Zone, Nicki and B'Elanna heading into Dominion space, Jens coming _back_ from Dominion space, Tom's _somewhere_ in the Delta quadrant, but we don't know exactly where at the moment. Jason, you're the only one I don't have to worry about for the foreseeable future!" B'Elanna remembered their conversation on Mars while they were waiting for the Borg to attack and felt a pang of sympathy for her mother-in-law. Marrying a Starfleet officer was one thing, but would she have done it if she had known that that would mean that she would be raising Starfleet officers as well, that she would someday have to sit at home, watching the grandchildren, because her children were off fighting a war or lost in a far-away part of the galaxy?

"Save a little bit of worrying for Jason," Nicki said wryly. "Our kids are assholes. I'm going to be getting so much rest for the next three months."

"I heard that!" Christopher called back to them.

"You were meant to!" she called back in reply.

Sydney rose. "Well, I'm off to the office to send my sister to war," she said dryly.

"My console is connected to Headquarters," B'Elanna offered. "You should be able to access your work station from there."

"Thanks, but I should touch base with others in the office. I'll be back soon. I hope."

By unspoken agreement, they were done talking about work. B'Elanna turned on the simulated fire pit in the middle of the space and brought down some synth beverages and the rest of Izzy's birthday cake. The smaller kids gradually began heading up to where the adults were sitting, the bigger ones as the sun began to set, Ainsley playing with her holoimager all the while. Sydney returned an hour and a half after she left and handed a PADD to Nicki without interrupting the conversation.

There were stories, there was laughter, and it would have been the perfect evening if the pending missions weren't hanging over all of them.

After the Parises had all beamed back to their respective houses, Navi helped put Izzy to bed and helped clean up. Before she left the apartment to head to the transporter station, she surprised B'Elanna by giving her a tight hug. She didn't like physical contact—Vulcans were touch telepaths, and even casual contact affected Navi—so such physical shows of affection were rare. "Be careful," Navi said as they separated.

"You, too," B'Elanna replied to her half-sister. "Be patient with your grandfather's family. They're probably not accustomed to being around people who are part-Betazoid, part-Vulcan, and part-Human, and have no experience suppressing emotions." Brown eyes studied black ones for a few seconds; she almost didn't believe that this young woman, a year away from being a Starfleet cadet, was the same person as the seven-year-old girl she met at her grandmother's house so long ago. "I'll see you when you get back from Vulcan." Navi gave a single, emphatic nod to that, and walked out of the apartment.


	60. 2375

Stardate 52345  
July 2375  
 _U.S.S. Veracruz_  
Quatal System

Lt. B'Elanna Torres and Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu were discussing Nu's proposal for an independent Advanced Engineering thesis over dinner in the _Veracruz_ 's mess hall. They had approximately twelve hours until the _Veracruz_ arrived at AR-558, and Torres had put her crew on mandatory rest until that time. They would be busy as soon as they got to the planet, and she wanted them in top shape.

"Mind if I join you?" Dr. Nicki Sanders asked, taking a seat without waiting for a response. "Anyone up for a game of Velocity after dinner?"

"I've ordered my team on rest," Torres replied. "Including my cadet. Don't try to pull your rank to confuse her about whose orders she should be listening to." Nicki snorted.

"I wouldn't know how to pull rank if I tried," she said dryly. "It is good phaser practice, though," she said to Nu. The cadet had qualified—barely—on both the hand phaser and phaser rifle a few days before. Nicki had surprised most of the security team with perfect scores on her recertification. She chose not to inform them that she had been quite the competitive Velocity player as a kid.

"I'm going to go to my quarters after dinner, but thank you for the invitation," Cadet Nu said politely. She took another bite of her ice cream. Torres smirked and turned to her sister-in-law.

"She's eating ice cream for dinner, and you're just going to sit there and watch?" she asked. "What kind of doctor are you?"

Nicki grinned in delight. "You have become _such_ a mother!" she said gleefully. "Which is ironic, because I am 95% sure that _your_ daughter is eating ice cream for dinner as we speak."

Torres rolled her eyes. "Don't get me started on what your mother thinks is appropriate grandparent behavior," she said. "But hey, if she's the one who wants to deal with an overly-sugared quarter-Klingon preschooler, more power to her."

Nicki chuckled. "But to answer your original question, I'm the kind of doctor who knows that the Xahean diet consists mainly of simple carbohydrates and that ice cream is perfectly appropriate," Nicki replied with a smirk. Nu grinned as she finished her ice cream, and then rose.

"Thank you for the discussion, sir," she said to Torres. "I'm going to head to my quarters."

"Zero-six in the armory," Torres reminded her.

"Yes, sir," Nu replied. "Have a good night, sir, Doctor."

"Night, Nu," Torres said. "Get some sleep. Don't stay up all night working on the triquantum wave problem."

"Yes, sir," Nu said with another grin.

Nicki watched the cadet leave. "So, Velocity?" she asked once the doors were closed behind Nu. Torres chuckled and shook her head.

"Shouldn't you be getting some rest, too?" she asked. "They said to expect casualties."

"Quite a few," Nicki agreed with a nod. "Dr. Bashir sent a message to the Sickbay with what to expect as of that moment. He also said that they were expecting an assault from the Jem'Hadar tonight and to prepare for casualties from that."

"Then why…" She cut herself off in sudden understanding. "You have nervous energy you need to burn off."

"So much," Nicki said emphatically. "Gods, _knowing_ that I'm going to be slammed is _torture_. I much prefer to be blissfully ignorant of how busy I'm going to be than to be given more than twelve hours of imagining the worst. If I go back to my quarters now, I'm just going to end up staring at the ceiling, coming up with progressively worse scenarios. Just one game of Velocity, _please_."

B'Elanna chuckled and shook her head in resignation. "I'd rather play hoverball."

Nicki snorted. "You wipe the floor with me at hoverball."

"Why do you think I prefer it?"

"Velocity is better practice before heading into a potential combat situation."

"In that case, I have a _bat'leth_ program we could run."

Nicki snorted. "Why use a _bat'leth_ when I've got a phaser?"

B'Elanna smiled slightly. "One game of Velocity," she finally agreed.

When she played Velocity against most opponents, B'Elanna's strength, stamina, and quick reflexes put her at an advantage. When she played against Nicki, though, she was reminded that Velocity was more about strategy and wit than physical attributes. And reminded that Parises had really, really good reaction times. Nicki scored four times without seeming to even try. B'Elanna made her work for the fifth point, but Nicki still pulled ahead. She finally got on the board, making it 5-1, and then Nicki quickly got her sixth point. B'Elanna could tell her that sister-in-law was getting tired, and it was a struggle for Nicki to score again before B'Elanna took the last two points.

"You would have had me if we were playing to 15," Nicki said. "I'm just…done." Her long blond hair had long ago come loose from its bun and she used her forearm to push loose strands back from her forehead. She gave B'Elanna an exhausted yet satisfied grin, which almost made B'Elanna do a double take.

Izzy had that same grin. So did Tom.

"Why did you quit playing?" B'Elanna asked. "As a kid," she clarified. She probably could take the next five points if they played to 15, but wouldn't feel too good about it in the morning.

Nicki shrugged a shoulder as she straightened. "Computer, reset," she ordered, and the disc, markings, and holophasers disappeared. "I wanted to get more serious about my dancing. That didn't leave a lot of time for Velocity." She frowned and looked away. "That's not it, though," she said a second later. "I mean, I did like dancing more, but really, Dad liked how good I was and Sydney hated how good I was. I was 12 and just cruising into that sweet spot of parental rebellion while wanting to be close to my sister. It was pretty easy to walk away from something that made Sydney jealous and Dad happy."

B'Elanna shook her head in wonder. "I wish I could have seen you guys as kids," she said, even though she had been two when Nicki was 12.

Nicki grinned again. "We were awful," she said. " _I_ didn't even like us as kids. And then I got married before I could grow out of it." She was still grinning, but now it was that slightly-exasperated expression she had.

The mention of her marriage reminded B'Elanna of the fight that Nicki and Jason had been having before they left on the _Veracruz_. "You and Jason still fighting?"

Nicki shook her head. "No, we have a temporary reprieve since I can't do anything about my career while I'm here. I did have to promise him that I'll make a decision when I get back, though. What decision I make is probably going to be 100% influenced by how this deployment goes." She sighed and twisted her now-damp hair around her hand to retie her bun. "Starfleet's not as hateful as I thought it would be," she admitted. "I figured it would be an easy decision, four and done, but I like the work and I like my colleagues. I'm not too thrilled with being away from my family for three months, but is three months every four years worth the good parts of my job?" She shrugged. "I guess we'll have to see how bad these three months are."

B'Elanna couldn't imagine any other career, but now that she thought about it, realized how odd that was. She didn't have the traditional career of a Starfleet engineer; she had never been assigned to a ship, and since graduating from the Academy, was only on her fourth work-related trip out of the system—two trips to Qo'noS, two trips to Dominion space. She could easily do everything she did at Pathfinder as a civilian, but there was still something satisfying about putting on her uniform every day, and while she never thought she would say this, she really enjoyed teaching at the Academy and working with cadets. But would she stay after Pathfinder was done, after _Voyager_ and Tom were back home? Would Tom still want to stay in Starfleet after it sent him to the other side of the galaxy? Would Tom's decisions for his career have any weight on her decisions for her career? Owen was always telling her how far she would go in Starfleet—he was confident that she would see captain, even believed she had the potential to head Starfleet Corps of Engineers someday—but she wasn't blinded by ambition the way Owen or Sydney were.

"I have to be in Sickbay at 0600 tomorrow to get ready to receive casualties," Nicki said as she brushed another loose strand of hair behind her ear. "So if I don't see you tomorrow morning, good luck. I should be down on the planet sometime in the afternoon."

B'Elanna would have been happy to have Nicki stay on the _Veracruz_ as they took the casualties to Starbase 371, but Nicki had put her foot down and the chief medical officer agreed—there was no point in having a hybridologist with trauma training on the mission if she stayed away from where the hybrid officer and the traumas were. She was going to be staying on AR-558 with the security and engineering teams while the _Veracruz_ went to Starbase 371 and came back. "I'll see you there," B'Elanna promised. "Sleep well."


	61. 2375

Stardate 52346  
July 2375  
AR-558  
Chin'toka System

Lt. B'Elanna Torres was in the middle of a discussion with Lt. Riccobono, one of the communication engineers on her team, when Commander Mike Garcia entered the cargo bay where the engineering team was mustered. "Lt. Torres," he greeted with a nod.

"Sir," Torres replied. She gave Riccobono an apologetic smile and joined Garcia, who was heading the security team down on the planet.

"My team is about ready to beam down to the planet," he said. "Captain Sisko reported that the Jem'Hadar threat has been neutralized, but I want to confirm that for myself before your team joins us. We have the medics with us, Dr. Sanders and her nurse will be coming down once the causalities have been stabilized. Is there anything you need from us at the moment?"

"No, sir," she replied. "My team is ready to get to work."

He nodded. "If anything happens on the surface, I need your people to continue working. We'll take care of the fighting. We're here to support your mission." She nodded her agreement. He glanced over at her team, a frown on his face. She wondered if he was assessing their combat abilities; she had done the same. They were almost entirely research engineers, and combat abilities were usually not required in a communications lab. "Are you sure you want to take the cadet?" he asked, his voice lowered. Her eyes narrowed; they had been over this already. He didn't want Nu down there, she replied that Nu was part of her team and was going. He tried to pull rank, but that ended very quickly when Torres threatened to comm Admiral Huang and get his take on the matter. She had met Sydney's boss a few times and found him to be pretty relatable, considering he was the Chief of Starfleet Operations. He trusted Torres, probably because Sydney told him to, and she was confident he would have her back if necessary. Commander Garcia didn't seem to think it was necessary, but still didn't seem happy about taking a cadet into a situation that had been an all-out battle only a few hours before.

"Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu stays with me," she said emphatically. "She's an important part of the team and we don't have time to switch out her job with anyone else." They really didn't know what to expect when they got down to the relay station; they had never actually seen one. One of the earlier teams to defend AR-558 had taken holos of the station, and Jupiter Station had used those to create a program, but Torres could only guess at what things actually were. The team had been practicing their roles in that holographic mock-up for the last week, but she knew that everything would be different once they saw the real thing.

It was an hour later that they beamed down to the planet, phasers at their hips, phase rifles slung across their backs, toolkits on their shoulders. Torres saw Commander Garcia talking to Lt. Commander Worf and Captain Sisko. "Riccobono, go ahead and get started," she instructed the engineer as she peeled off to talk to the senior officers. They had anticipated this, too, and he gave a nod as he led the team of 23 engineers toward the communications relay.

Worf was the first to notice her approach and stepped back from Garcia and Sisko. "Lieutenant Torres," he greeted. "I did not anticipate your arrival."

"Starfleet is short on experts in Dominion tech," she replied. He nodded once to that. She forced herself to relax; she was on edge around him, probably because her experiences with Klingons were not overly positive, and he was even more extremely Klingon than the Klingons on Qo'nos. "I heard about Commander Dax," she said softly. "I'm sorry."

He looked away as he gave another single nod. "She awaits my arrival in Sto-va-kor," he replied. "I am sorry you lost contact with Lt. Paris again." She knew better than to complain about not getting to talk to her husband to a man whose wife was dead, so she just nodded at that. "How is Isela?"

She smiled involuntarily—gods, Nicki was right, she had become such a mother—and said, "She's good. We just had her fourth birthday party before I left. She's playing on a U7 soccer team that my niece coaches."

He frowned slightly at that. "Soccer is a good game, but she should be careful," he declared. "Human children are fragile."

Torres snorted. "She's mostly human," she reminded him. "And she's playing with girls two years older than her. How is Alexander?" she quickly asked, mostly to keep him from telling whatever gruesome story he had about why he felt the need to caution her about Klingons playing soccer with humans.

He straightened even further at the question. "He is doing well," he declared. "He is now the weapons officer of the _Ya'Vang_. He does not make as many mistakes as he once did."

Torres stiffened again at that last sentence, because it was like she was listening to her mother again. Miral couldn't give a compliment without qualifying it, either. Maybe full Klingons just had a hard time being proud of their part-Klingon children. Something they probably should have considered before having kids with people who weren't fully Klingon.

She wished Worf well and checked in with Captain Sisko, only to be questioned yet again about her decision to have a cadet on the mission. She assured the captain that she would keep Nu safe, wished him a safe journey back to DS9, and headed toward the communication relay.

Torres saw Chief O'Brien talking to a petite and absolutely exhausted Trill in a teal uniform. She gave Torres a thin, tired smile as she approached. "Lt. Torres," the Trill greeted. She turned to O'Brien and said, "I'll see you back on the ship," and then walked off.

"Do I know her?" Torres asked with a frown. She was accustomed to people recognizing her—she was the only half-Klingon in Starfleet—but the Trill officer seemed like they were more familiar.

"That's Ezri Dax," he said, and she frowned.

"Younger sister?" she guessed. O'Brien shook his head.

"New host," he explained. She frowned again.

"But Worf..."

"It's complicated," O'Brien said. She decided she didn't need more explanation. "Lieutenant, I have some bad news," he said somberly. "We lost the Jem'Hadar fighter, a few days before we left DS9. They were trying to do the delivery run here."

She had a quip on her lips about being surprised it had lasted as long as it had and him misjudging her emotional attachment if he felt the need to tell her in person that it was lost. And then she realized he wasn't just talking about the ship itself. If it had been in battle, there had been people on it. Her eyes widened in realization. "Lt. Glass and Petty Officer Pagano were among those lost," he said.

She felt like she had been hit right in the chest. She couldn't look at the chief and all but collapsed against the stone wall as she reeled with this new information. She hadn't even realized Glass wasn't on Mars, which wasn't unusual for the intelligence officer, and she found she had a hard time grasping the fact that he would never again abruptly appear in her office with a new duty or task for her, because her mind was stuck on the second half of his revelation.

Brynnlyleigh Pagano was dead.

Torres would be the first to admit that she wasn't that good at correspondence, and she herself didn't post much on social media—her most common posts were questions about the S-class shuttle in a group dedicated to shuttle restoration—but she did follow what other people posted. Less than three weeks before, Pagano had pictures from her promotion ceremony to petty officer. A few weeks before that, it was that she was engaged to be married. October in New York; she wanted her father to walk her down to the aisle. "I was going to go to her wedding," Torres murmured. Although ceremonies still weren't her thing, she had been honored to get an invitation and was looking forward to seeing her former mechanic again.

"Joey is a communications tech on DS9," O'Brien said. "Their parents all live in the same neighborhood in the Bronx—"

"But they didn't know that until they had already gone on a few dates," Torres interrupted. Pagano had told her the story. She rubbed her eyes. "All she wanted was to get married and have kids," she said. "She was so good with Izzy." Izzy. Did she even remember the young mechanic who had liked to play with her when she was a toddler? "She was a good person."

"One of my best," O'Brien said. "She lived and breathed that ship. There wasn't a component on it that she didn't know backwards and forwards or couldn't fix blindfolded." Torres didn't have the words to tell him that she wasn't talking about Pagano's mechanical ability, but the fact that she was a genuinely good person.

"I need to get to this," she said abruptly, straightening from the wall. She paused before walking away. "Thank you, Chief. For telling me in person."

He nodded. "Stay safe," he said. She gave a nod and turned and went to join her engineers.

* * *

As immersed as she had been in her work of trying to access the data in the Dominion communication system, Torres barely registered Nicki's arrival or announcement that the _Veracruz_ was leaving orbit and anticipated returning in three days. Her team began their rest-work cycles, but she powered through, the way she did. She didn't know what time it was when she heard the explosion; it wasn't in their protected room, but nor was it all that far away. She looked up from her work to see everyone else also looking around. "Houdinis," Nu said matter-of-factly. "That's what the last group here called them. I heard them talking about them. Subspace mines."

"They left us instructions on how to detect and disable them," Chief Nieto volunteered.

Torres glanced around; she had ten engineers in the room with her at the moment, the others on their rest cycles. Of the ten, Nu was probably the most familiar with Dominion tech. "Chief, you and Cadet Nu get working on that," she said. She saw Commander Garcia enter the room and turned to him.

"I don't know how, but the Jem'Hadar are back," he said grimly. She nodded.

"Chief Nieto and Cadet Nu are going to get started on the subspace mines," she said. He frowned.

"I need your people to stay in here, where it's protected," he said. "The field infirmary is also in a protected area."

"Subspace mines don't care about your protected areas," she snapped. "That's the point!" She heard another explosion, maybe further away than the first. "People need to stop moving until they can be detected, and to do that, my team needs to be able to do their jobs!"

"Is that the right job for a cadet?"

"With all due respect, sir, the only person who knows more about Dominion weapons is Lt. Torres," Nu chimed in. She gave a wide grin and blinked her inner eyelids. "If I have your permission, sir, the sooner I get started, the sooner we'll see them."

He frowned at her, then barked at two of security team to stand guard over Nieto and Nu as they worked. Torres snorted and returned her attention to her work; subspace mines didn't care about people standing guard.

It didn't take Nieto and Nu long to detect the mines, and then they immediately got to work defusing them. Torres was barely peripherally paying attention to their work, focused as she was on the communications relay they needed to tap. She was pretty sure she had finally found the relay to access the stored data when she heard another explosion. This was one softer than the others, but also much closer—in the same room, she realized—and then she heard a scream that didn't sound human. Because it wasn't.

When she spun to see what the commotion was, she saw Nu, clutching her chest, bright orange blood on her hands, as she collapsed to the floor.


	62. 2375

Stardate 52346  
July 2375  
AR-558  
Chin'toka System

"Nu!" Torres exclaimed as she ran forward.

"The mine!" Chief Nieto exclaimed at the same moment, lunging to intercept the offending mine before it made its way to the floor.

"I'm okay!" Nu said. She was crouched on the floor and tried to rise, but then reconsidered and moved to a seated position. She blinked in and out of existence a few times, and for several horrifying seconds, Torres thought that the subspace mine had somehow trapped her somewhere between subspace and normal space. And then Torres remembered that, like the Jem'Hadar, Xaheans had the ability to cloak themselves. It was a fun trick that had delighted Izzy the first time the two had met, and Nu had explained that it could also be an involuntary response when startled. "It caught me by surprise," the cadet admitted.

"We need a medical team!" Nieto shouted to no one in particular. Fortunately, one of the techs ran out to get medical team from the infirmary. "What happened?" he demanded to Nu.

"It was the charging pin, not the explosive itself," she explained. Her inner eyelids blinked, and then her whole body rapidly cloaked and uncloaked again before she stabilized and turned to Torres, an apologetic look on her face. "I'm sorry, sir. That was a stupid mistake. I was working too fast."

"The charging pin still packs quite the punch," Nieto said. "How are you still talking?"

"Exoskeleton," Nu explained with a quick grin. She moved her hands from her chest to reveal a hole in her uniform, through which a dark plate could be seen, smeared with bright orange blood. She winced. "I think I cracked it, though." Two medics appeared with a litter, ready to take Nu to the field infirmary. She tried to wave them off. "I'm fine," she protested.

"Go," Torres commanded. "You're no good to me injured. I'll be in to see you as soon as I can get away. We'll discuss what happened later." As she turned to go back to her control panel, she caught the mortified look on Nu's face. She knew she was being harsher on the cadet than necessary—she was pretty sure the cracked exoskeleton was punishment enough for her sloppy work—but was too angry to deal with that now.

Nu knew better. She was a better engineer than that, and Torres was beyond angry that after all she had done to stand up for Nu's skills and justify why she needed the cadet on her team, Nu had made such a stupid mistake and proven everyone right.

An hour later, Lts. Torres and Riccobono had established a link between the relay and the CRC. _*We're downloading now,*_ the communications officer from CRC announced. _*This is a lot of data. At this rate, it'll be about twenty hours before the download is complete.*_

"We're here for a few days anyway, until the _Veracruz_ returns from Starbase 371," Torres replied. "We should be able to hold the line open until it's complete. Comm if you need anything from our end."

She and Riccobono shared a tired grin. "You should get some rest, sir," Lt. Riccobono said. "Not much we can do here while the data's being transferred."

Torres nodded distractedly as she checked her chronometer; a little after 2200. They had been on the surface for 14 hours. Everyone else on her team had either had a rest period or was resting now. "You got it in here while I'm gone?" she asked. He nodded to the affirmative, and for the first time since she spoken to Chief O'Brien that morning, she left the room with the relay station.

She heard the distant sounds of phaser rifles as she headed toward the field infirmary. She had known the Jem'Hadar were back when the subspace mines began exploding, but she hadn't fully thought through the ramifications of that or realized that that meant that there would be actual fighting.

Or actual injuries, as she saw as soon as she stepped into the field infirmary.

Nicki had been Izzy's pediatrician since Dr. Solaris Jaxon left for DS9, but B'Elanna still always saw her more as her sister-in-law than an actual physician. Until that moment. She was exactly as B'Elanna would expect of a Paris in a crisis—professional, cool, calm—but still uniquely Nicki. She had a quick and reassuring smile for her patients as she tended to their injuries, an easy professionalism with her nurse and medics, and an air of determination despite the fatigue B'Elanna saw on her face. "Don't tell me you're injured, too," she said, barely glancing up as she loaded a hypospray. B'Elanna smiled thinly.

"No, just checking on Nu."

Nicki nodded as she administered the hypo. "This will help with the pain. I'll be back in a few minutes," she said, then gestured B'Elanna to the far wall, where she now saw Nu sitting in a chair, in what was clearly a freshly-replicated cadet's uniform, given the lack of a gaping hole in the front.

"Cadet Nu is as good as new. No pun intended," Nicki said, giving Nu a quick smile. "Just a slight crack to her chest plate and some bruising to her lung, all of which has been patched up."

"I'm ready to return to duty, sir," Nu said quickly. Torres shook her head.

"We've established a link to CRC and they're downloading data as we speak," she said. "You can get some rest." She looked up at Nicki. "Can she stay here a few hours?"

Nicki shook her head. "We don't have any beds and this is definitely not an environment conducive to rest. I'm discharging her to wherever it is that you engineers are bunked."

Torres realized she didn't know where that was, as she hadn't even left the relay station, but she still shook her head. "I'd feel better if she stayed here," she argued. "You're well-protected in here."

Nicki raised an eyebrow. "You know how I said I don't know how to pull rank?" she asked. "Well, I'm willing to learn. No one not under medical treatment is staying, including your engineers, and that's an order, Lieutenant." Torres narrowed her eyes, but Nicki crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows, the universal Paris move for, 'just try to argue with me now.' "Cadet, you're dismissed to get some rest," she said, her eyes not leaving Torres'. Nu, sensing that this was not the time for speaking, quickly got up and left the infirmary.

"Nu told me what happened," Nicki said after the cadet had left. "It was a careless mistake, but I think she's learned her lesson. You don't need to treat her like a child."

"I wouldn't have to if she hadn't made such a childish mistake," Torres replied. Nicki rolled her eyes.

"Right. I'm sure you've never made a mistake," she said sarcastically.

"Not one that caused a bomb to explode in front of my chest!"

Nicki's eyes narrowed again as she studied her sister-in-law. "This isn't like you," she said slowly. "You're always the first to correct people who refer to cadets and crewmen as children, and now you're treating Nu like you're a disappointed parent and sending her child to bed without dinner. What's going on?"

"Nothing's going on, Nicki," Torres snapped. "Everyone said sending a cadet to a combat situation was a bad idea. Apparently, they're right. She's proven that she isn't ready for it."

"Who is?" Nicki asked sardonically. "We're all making this up as we go. Even Garcia, who's studied small unit tactics, said that every situation is different and no plans survive first contact with the enemy. Haven't you figured out yet that being an adult is just making it up as you go?"

"I made a mistake in bringing Nu here. I get that now," B'Elanna said. "I'm trying to fix that by keeping her as safe as possible."

"Bullshit," Nicki declared. "Nu's a great engineer. You didn't make a mistake in bringing her here, and you know it. Are you going to tell me what's going on or not?"

B'Elanna glared at her, then pursed her lips, then looked away. "I have a pretty lousy track record for keeping people safe," she finally said. Nicki frowned, confused.

"What are you talking about?"

B'Elanna shook her head. "It's not important," she said crisply. "I need to get back to work."

"You just told Nu that there's nothing to do," Nicki argued. "You should listen to your own advice and get some rest. Hell, let's make it official medical advice for you to get some rest. And food, because I'm willing to bet that you haven't eaten anything since we left the _Veracruz_."

"I'm fine, Nicki."

Her arms crossed again, and then she looked over toward the patients. "Esh," she called out. Her nurse turned to face her. "You have it here? I can use a break."

"Go get something to eat, Doc," he replied. "Everything's stable, and I've got you on comms if that changes."

She nodded once at him, then returned her attention to her sister-in-law. "I can medically relieve you from duty for not obeying medical orders," she said. B'Elanna rolled her eyes. She was pretty sure Nicki wouldn't, and pretty sure Commander Garcia would immediately reverse any attempts at it if she did, but also knew that sometimes it was just easier to do what Nicki said than continue to argue.

Nu was seated at one of the tables, drinking something out of a bottle and reading a PADD, when they walked in. Her eyes widened slightly and she immediately scurried off toward what Torres could only assume was where the engineering crew had set up camp. "She's going to be terrified of you if you don't apologize," Nicki said as she headed over to the replicator.

" _Me?_ " B'Elanna asked incredulously. " _I_ wasn't the one who detonated a bomb in front of my chest! What do _I_ have to apologize for?"

"For making her feel worse than she already does," Nicki said. She tossed B'Elanna a sealed pack. " _Bon appetite,_ " she said.

"What's the point of having a replicator if it's only programmed with field rations?" B'Elanna grumbled, reading the package: _Field Ration C, Human._ "And what's the point of having a hybrid physician if you're just going to feed me the same food as everyone else?"

"I'm actually going to talk to our dietician about creating customized field rations," Nicki replied as she took the seat across from her sister-in-law. B'Elanna snorted.

"That sounds useful, for the, what, ten hybrid officers in the 'Fleet?"

"There are more than that," Nicki replied lightly. "Humans and Betazoids _really_ like to get it on, apparently. And Vulcans have a strange fascination with sex with other species, although that results in fewer babies than some other combinations. But I'm talking about customized rations for _everyone_. Quick scan and the replicator spits out rations with the right number of calories, right ratio of macromolecules, and addressing any electrolyte and mineral deficiencies that may be present. We have the technology. It's a little stupid that we haven't done it year." She took a bite of her ration and swallowed. "Now. You want to talk about what has you acting weird, or should I get Bayrote on the comm?"

"I should have sided with Sydney and had you sent to another ship," B'Elanna muttered. " _Any_ other ship."

"Too late for that now."

"Pagano was killed," B'Elanna said abruptly. "And Glass. Chief O'Brien told me this morning. Happened a couple of days ago."

All of the humor left Nicki's face. "Oh, B'Elanna, I'm so sorry—"

Torres gave a single shake of her head and waved her words off angrily; she didn't need anyone's sympathy, especially that of someone who didn't know them. "Glass knew what he was doing," she said, "But Pagano… I never should have given O'Brien permission to take her away from UP. She wasn't ready for it. She had been in one battle and almost fell apart, and I let him take her and assign her right in the focus of the war. If I had kept her on my crew, she'd still be safe."

"Those decisions are made at levels much higher than you," Nicki pointed out. On an intellectual level, B'Elanna knew she was right; O'Brien had asked for her permission to take Pagano, and Torres had agreed to recommend it, but it was Commander Winters who released the mechanic and Starfleet Personnel Office who made the transfer.

"I bring Nu on this mission, and she almost blows herself up," B'Elanna argued. "I recommend Pagano to stay with the Jem'Hadar ship, and she gets killed when the ship is destroyed. I tell Tom—" She cut herself off and gave an angry shake of her head.

"Now you're blaming yourself for Tom, too?" Nicki asked, incredulously.

"He didn't want to go!" B'Elanna exclaimed. Nicki glanced around, and B'Elanna took the hint, lowering her voice. "He didn't want to go," she repeated. "And I told him to stop worrying about me and to go, and his ship gets sent to the opposite side of the galaxy. I can't be trusted to make the right decisions when it comes to cadets, mechanics, my own husband… And now _you're_ here, too, in the middle of a battle—"

"Don't drag me into this," Nicki interrupted. "I was the one who volunteered to come here. That had nothing to do with you."

"You wouldn't have volunteered if I wasn't here!" B'Elanna shot back. Nicki tilted her head in acknowledgement.

"Okay, true," she admitted. "Me and my issues aside, you expect the best, out of yourself and everyone around you, and people respect you and _give you_ the best. And the best are _always_ in demand and _always_ going to be asked to do better and are _always_ going to be asked to do the most dangerous missions, because dangerous missions are more likely to succeed if you have the best people on them. If you see bad things happening to the people you choose to surround yourself with, it's because you're surrounding yourself with the best people, the most talented people, the most dedicated people, the type of people who want to go to war despite being terrified of it or want to pilot a ship in the Badlands despite having a pregnant wife at home. The type of people who will drop everything on her summer break and go to a combat zone without even being phaser qualified just because you asked her to." Torres narrowed her eyes, but Nicki didn't give her the opportunity to say anything. "It isn't your engineering skills that makes Dad so sure that you're going to go far in Starfleet. There are thousands of good engineers in Starfleet, hundreds of great ones. Sure, you have expertise that they don't have, but that's because you were at the right place at the right time to build that expertise. No, what makes you different is that you're a great _leader_. Your people will go to insane lengths for you, and that's rare."

B'Elanna blinked at that passion in Nicki's voice and wondered if she was really that demanding of a leader. Yes—she knew the answer to that one. She _was_ that demanding, but did the people under her really go out of their ways to meet her demands just because she was the one making them?

She thought about what Tom had said in his letters about serving under Captain Janeway. He had been angry at first—angry that he was forced into a career he hadn't wanted, angry that she had decided to strand them in the Delta quadrant instead of using the technology that brought them there to get them home—but she had heard the gradual change in his impressions of his captain over the years in his personal logs, and by the time they made contact with _Voyager_ , he talked about the kind of leader she was and how she made him want to be a good officer, not just a good pilot. Whether they got them home in a year or a decade, no matter how many captains he would serve under for the rest of his career, she would always be his captain. "How do ship captains do it?" she asked. "How do they balance needing their people to perform at their best and needing to keep them safe? How do they keep moving forward it after watching members of their crew die?"

Nicki shrugged. "Let's just say Captain Owen Paris of the _Al-Batani_ learned a lot about whiskey in those four years," she said. She shook her head. "Dad _hated_ being a ship's captain, and the only reason he did it is because he knew he wouldn't make admiral without it. But he was _very_ glad to get a position at Headquarters after the _Al-Batani_. How captains like Picard do it, commanding ships for more than thirty years, I'll never know. I'm glad that, even if I stay in Starfleet, that won't _ever_ be a job I have to have." She fidgeted with the spoon from her rations before rising from her seat. "I need to get back to the infirmary. I've been gone too long already," she said abruptly.

"I should get back to the relay station," B'Elanna replied, nodding slightly. They both paused as they heard another volley of phaser fire, not far enough away.

"Why are they still fighting?" Nicki asked rhetorically. "They have to know by now that we've accessed the relay station."

"I'm pretty sure they want to take it back," B'Elanna replied, and then she realized that she was right.

They wanted to take it back, and they weren't going to stop until they had.

Or until there was nothing left to take back.

"I need to find Commander Garcia," she said abruptly. "We need to make a call to Syd's boss."


	63. 2375

Stardate 52348  
July 2375  
AR-558  
Chin'toka System

Lt. B'Elanna Torres was aware it was the middle of the night in San Francisco. She was also aware that there was an active fire fight not too far from where she stood. She wasn't terribly concerned with either at the moment.

Commander Garcia looked like he had had better days, and looked like he just wanted to get this over with so he could go back to the battlefield and get _that_ over with. Admiral Huang looked like he was half-asleep in his office at home. Ensign Bakos was the duty officer at CRC and looked like she wanted to be anywhere but on that comm at that moment. And she had no idea who the commander was on the line, but he had that distinct 'Starfleet Intelligence' look about him.

"Sorry to disturb you in the middle of the night, sir," Commander Garcia started the conversation.

 _*What's the situation, Commander?*_ Huang asked, getting right down to the point.

"Not great, but we're holding, sir," Garcia replied. "There were at least two columns of Jem'Hadar. Less now. I don't know where they came from or how they got here, but it's pretty obvious they're after the communications relay. We're keeping them a good distance back from it."

 _*Lt. Torres?*_ Admiral Huang asked.

"We've established a link with CRC. They're downloading the data as we speak."

 _*Approximately 18 more hours, sir,*_ Ensign Bakos chimed in.

"Sir, I'm going to get right down to the point," Torres said. "The Jem'Hadar are going to keep coming and trying to retake the relay station, as long as it's here. I suggest we either dissemble it and take it with us or destroy it. We're prepared to do either as soon as the download is complete."

 _*Sir, the data from the relay station could provide invaluable,*_ the Intelligence commander protested. _*We need to keep it active as long as possible.*_

"It isn't active," Torres pointed out. "The Dominion can bypass relay stations. They've been doing that ever since we took AR-558 a few months ago. We can access the data that was stored in the station, but we can't access the network itself, not from here. Once we're done downloading the stored data, its usefulness ends."

 _*Can we bug it and give it back to the Dominion?*_ the Intelligence officer asked. Torres snorted.

"They're not stupid, sir," she pointed out. "We can keep rotating troops in and out and keep holding this rock, but it's going to cost a lot of lives and without much gain. Or we can tear it down, take it back with us to the CRC, and learn more about how the Dominion communicate."

"I agree with Lt. Torres' assessment, sir," Commander Garcia chimed in.

Admiral Huang didn't need much time to think about it. _*How long will it take you to dissemble the relay, Lieutenant?*_

"Less time than it'll take for the _Veracruz_ to return to pick us up," she replied. She actually didn't know how long it would take, and wouldn't until they got started—which they probably wouldn't be able to do until the CRC had finished downloading all the data—but they still had more than two days until the _Veracruz_ returned and she figured they'd probably be able to get it done by then.

 _*Sir, I really think we need to explore options to tap into the Dominion's communication network,*_ the Intelligence officer protested again. _*What we could get could be invaluable.*_

"This node is not active," Torres repeated emphatically. "There's nothing to tap into. I don't know where they control their communication network, but it's not here. It might even be back in the Gamma quadrant, for all I know. The Dominion has turned it off and won't turn it back on unless they retake AR-558 and confirm that we hadn't tampered with it. We'll be able to get more from it by studying it at the CRC."

 _*I agree with Lt. Torres,*_ Admiral Huang said after some consideration. _*Keep us posted, Commander, Lieutenant. Operations out.*_ His section of the screen went dark before anyone could argue. The intelligence officer glowered, and then he went dark as well.

 _*I'll comm you if I notice any change to the download,*_ Ensign Bakos said. _*Lt. Barclay has day shift after me, which is good. He's probably already monitoring the situation from home.*_

"He's probably in the holodeck," Torres countered with a roll of her eyes. "Thanks, Bakos. We'll try not to rope you into any more comms with admirals tonight." Bakos snorted her agreement before signing off, leaving Torres and Garcia.

"How are things out there?" she asked.

"Not bad, not great," he replied. "We outnumber them, which helps. I think they were counting on their mines having a bigger effect than they did." He paused, then asked, "The cadet okay?"

"Her name is Nu," Torres replied, annoyed, "and she's fine. I think her ego took the brunt of the damage."

He grunted and made his way toward the chamber's exit. "I'll check in on you in a couple of hours. In the meantime, we're keeping the fighting as far away from you as we can."

"We appreciate it," Torres replied. He waved a hand and left.

Torres sighed and turned to study the relay station, already mentally breaking it down into the constituent parts and trying to figure out the best way to dissemble it in a manner that would allow them to reassemble it and power it back on once they got back to San Francisco. She had a rough idea of how they would do it, but she was going to need help to get the details. And for at least part of it, that help had to come from a cadet who was currently nursing a bruised ego.

She gave her orders to the engineers, mechanics, and comms techs in the room, and then headed back to where she thought the rest spaces were. She wasn't at all surprised to see that Nu was awake, studying something on a PADD. She looked up at the sound of Torres entering and looked almost like a kid getting caught reading under the covers instead of sleeping. "I have a job for you," Torres said, and Nu scrambled to get to her feet to follow Torres. As they walked, Torres explained the situation and how they needed to dissemble and pack the whole relay station. "I need you to map the communications node," she said. She knew Nu could do it, because she had covered it in both the Dominion Tech course and the Advanced Communications Network Engineering course.

"Yes, sir," Nu said, fighting to keep from grinning and failing.

"I need you to make me a promise first," Torres said. She stopped walking and faced Nu.

"I won't mess with any more mines," Nu said quickly.

"Well, good," Torres said. "But what I was going to say is, you need to promise me you'll take an explosives course next year. If you're going to be defusing mines, you better learn how to do it without blowing yourself up."

This time, Nu didn't bother to try to hold back her grin. "Yes, sir!"

* * *

They still had six hours left of the data download when the engineering team finished mapping the relays and making a plan of action for how to dissemble the station. Knowing that they couldn't begin until that was done, Torres ordered all but the comms tech monitoring the data download to get something to eat and try to rest.

The makeshift mess hall was crowded with soldiers, and now that she was listening for it, Torres realized she couldn't hear any sounds of battle. She didn't know if that meant that they had killed all the Jem'Hadar or if the Jem'Hadar preferred to fight at night, but she knew better than to think that it meant that all was well and all would be safe.

She and Nu replicated some rations—she had no idea what Xahean rations were, but they came in a drink form—and found some seats against a wall. Torres was exhausted, and she could see that her cadet was as well, but her initial impressions had been right—Nu was the right person to bring along for the job, and they'd undoubtedly still be working to map the relays if she had brought someone else in her place. "I found out when we got here that one of my former mechanics and one of my training officers from plebe summer were killed a few days ago," Torres said abruptly. "Sorry I took that out on you."

Nu blinked her inner eyelids. "My plebe company commander died when the Borg attacked," she said after a long pause. "She was engineer on the _Budapest_. She was Mizarian; there are even fewer of them in Starfleet than Xaheans and she really helped me learn to adjust to Earth and to Starfleet. She told me which classes I should take and which professors to avoid. She was a good friend. I miss her."

"Good company commanders make a difference," Torres said. Nu's eyes shown with amusement.

"I didn't marry mine though, sir."

Torres laughed. It felt good to laugh, amidst the exhaustion and the dirt and the terribly tasteless rations, and Nu looked pleased with herself. "More trouble than it's worth," she joked. "Especially when they come with sisters-in-law like mine." She lapsed back into silence, thinking of what Sydney had said about the pain of losing her brother and wondering how that had compared to her uncertainty about losing her husband or certainty about losing a former protege. "I guess none of us will emerge from this war unscathed," she observed a moment later.

"Xaheans don't fear death," Nu said conversationally. "We are returned to Xahea and become one with the planet, and the planet is one within us. We are connected, as has been the natural balance between our people and our planet since our birth." She paused and tapped her ration bottle softly with one claw. "Maybe it's because I've spent most of the last three years on Earth, but I've found that the thought that my friend is no longer alive makes me sad."

"Humans fear death," Torres said. "I think it's the fear of missing out. There are multiple mythologies built around the idea of watching over loved ones after dying, or being reborn and returning to Earth, all because humans really don't like the idea that something may happen after they die and that they'll miss it. Klingons fear a dishonorable death, so the mythologies there are built around glorifying an 'honorable' death in order to avoid a 'dishonorable' one." This was reminding her too much of her sessions with Bayrote after _Voyager_ disappeared, with the two of them researching various mythologies surrounding death in order to find something that she could latch on to and help her accept that Tom was dead. Nothing ever stuck, which spawned another long series of sessions about how not finding a death mythology she liked was symbolic of the fact that she never allowed herself to feel like she fit in and was so sure that she never would that she didn't even think she'd fit in after she died.

"And you?" Nu asked, and while this had been a pleasant apology-and-bonding moment, Torres felt no need to unpack years of therapy onto her cadet.

"I have no desire to die any time soon," Torres replied simply as she rose. "Let's get some rest. The sooner we get that relay station dissembled, the sooner we'll be done with these Jem'Hadar and the less likely it is that either of us gets to find out which mythology is actually true."


	64. 2377

Stardate 54477  
November 2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager_ _  
_Alpha Quadrant

Lt. Tom Paris knew how to read a navigational chart. He learned when he was eight or nine; it was a condition to "graduate" to actual shuttles in his junior flight league when he was ten, and it wasn't a skill he had ever let diminish.

He knew how to read a nav chart, which was how he knew that they would be at Earth the next day. Around noon the next day, in fact, unless they had a planned paused around Jupiter to time their entrance to just when Starfleet wanted them. Which was the most likely scenario.

Starfleet loved a good show.

He had spent more than six and a half years working toward getting home, and now that it would be there the next day, was dreading it. He was being selfish, and he knew that. He had B'Elanna and Izzy here on _Voyager_ with him, and that was all he wanted. He didn't need to be on Earth, or on Mars; he'd be content to stay on _Voyager_ as long as they were with him.

And once they got back, everything would change. Izzy would be going back to school, B'Elanna back to work, and there would be debriefings, probably months of debriefings and inquests as Starfleet tried to figure out what to do with the former Maquis, with the former _Equinox_ crew, with their two former Borg, with the data they had gathered along the way and the changes they had made to their ship.

And he would have to decide what he wanted to do when he grew up. There was the ship design division; they liked the specs of the Delta Flyer and wanted to see it in person, but already thought they had a place for him in their group. Then there was the test flight division, which he knew would take him back without any complaint, but as he told B'Elanna, he didn't think he wanted to go back to being a test pilot.

He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to remain a Starfleet officer.

It felt strange to him to know that Nicki, the sister who never wanted anything to do with Starfleet, had the same internal struggle about whether she wanted to stay or leave. Now that he thought about it, he realized he could talk to her about it and get her thoughts on the matter, since she had had similar internal debates; in all his life, he never thought _hey, let's discuss pros and cons of sticking with a Starfleet career_ would be a conversation he would have with Nicki. With either of his sisters, actually. It seemed like Sydney had been preparing for Starfleet for as long as Tom had been alive, and there had never been a question in anyone's mind that she would retire as an admiral or die trying. Having a conversation with Sydney about her thoughts on leaving Starfleet would be as productive as having a conversation with a wall. And if Jens was involved, as exciting as one.

For the first time since he and his fellow crewmates were sent to the Delta quadrant, Paris wondered if maybe they had gotten to take the easy way out. He certainly hadn't thought so, not as they were struggling with the Kazons, the Vidiians, the Hirogen, the Borg, the constantly draining supply of dilithium, the endless repairs to the ship and the constant rebuilding of shuttles, but now hearing B'Elanna's story, he doubted things would have been easier if he had been in the Alpha quadrant. _Voyager_ 's struggles were real, but they had made it with their morals intact, more or less. From what he had heard from B'Elanna and read through the datastream, there weren't many people in the Federation who emerged from the Dominion War without blood on their hands. There were a lot of morally questionable decisions, decisions that had given Captain Janeway a sad look on her face when she read about them, and a lot of deaths. He knew how hard that must have been on B'Elanna, who had defined most of her life by the loss of her father and struggled with getting close to people, fearing that she would lose them, too. He was a little amazed to hear from her own mouth about the mechanics and cadets she had mentored, and felt her pain when the universe again decided to kick her in the teeth and remind her why she shouldn't let anyone get too close. He wished he could have gotten to know these women or even gotten to know Glass as an adult, outside the artificial environment of the Academy and their roles as training officers for plebe summer.

His internal musings on the bridge must have been pretty obvious; Captain Janeway came out onto the bridge, glanced around for a minute, and then said, "Mr. Paris. I've asked Mr. Neelix to prepare a party of the crew tonight in the holodeck. I was thinking that it would only be appropriate to have it in one of our old shared programs. I'd like you to work with him on any necessary modifications to whichever program you choose."

He smiled as he rose from the helm. "Yes, ma'am."

Neelix and Paris had enlisted a couple of assistants—Izzy and Naomi; Neelix had been on baby-sitting duty—and after a run through each of the shared programs—Sandrine's, the beach resort, Fair Haven, the movie theater—Paris and Neelix settled on Sandrine's. Izzy and Naomi were more interested in the beach, but Paris felt that Sandrine's was more symbolic. The first program the _Voyager_ crew had shared would also be the last.

So engrossed in his programming, Paris barely noticed when Neelix left the girls with him as he went to the mess hall to get ready for lunch, and he definitely didn't notice when lunchtime rolled around until B'Elanna came into the holodeck. "Sandrine's," B'Elanna said with a smile. "Why am I not surprised?"

He grinned up at her from where he had made camp at one of the tables. "Wanna play a game of pool?" he asked. She snorted and rolled her eyes. Despite the fact that she was much better at math in general, and geometry in particular, than he was, he could usually beat her at pool. Probably because it was too sedate of a game for her.

"What's for lunch?" she asked instead.

"It's Sandrine's," he reminded her. "You hate the food here."

"Please tell me you didn't program the replicators to only produce Sandrine-level quality of food," she said warningly, and he grinned again.

"Standard programming for the replicator," he assured her. "It's in the kitchen, for authenticity's sake. Back there."

"You want anything?"

"Grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup?"

"Ah," she said knowingly. "Thinking food." She frowned, then said, "I'm assuming you have a recipe saved, with how particular you are about your tomato soup."

He grinned up at her, strangely pleased that she remembered that, even if it was only annoyance that had made that memory stick. "The meal's Paris 15. Thanks."

"How long did that one take you to perfect?"

"Three years," he said proudly. "But it is perfect." She rolled her eyes and he chuckled. She finally saw the two girls, playing on the hopscotch court he programmed in for them on the middle of the dance floor to keep them occupied while he worked on figuring out the right configuration of the room. "Izzy, Naomi, are you ready for lunch?"

The girls came over and helped B'Elanna carry the food. Even though tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich was his thinking food, Tom put aside his PADD to focus on his lunch companions. "Can Naomi come and visit us when we're back on Earth?" Izzy asked eagerly. Without waiting for a response, she turned to Naomi and said, "We live in Hawaii. Do you know where that is?"

Naomi shook her head. "Mom's always talking about Earth," she said. "But my dad is from Ktaris. I programmed a scale model of Ktaris for a science fair project a few months ago."

Izzy's eyes widened. "I've never been to Ktaris!" she exclaimed, then turned excitedly to B'Elanna. "Mom, can we visit Naomi on Ktaris?"

Tom chuckled and B'Elanna gave a slight smile. "I think that's more up to Naomi's parents than it is us," she said mildly. They had all talked about what they were going to do when they got back to the Alpha quadrant and where they were going to live. Last time he discussed it with Sam, she said they hadn't decided where they were going to live; Greskrendtregk had left DS9 during the Dominion War and hadn't gone back, and she didn't want them to go back. She didn't want to live in space anymore and didn't want to raise Naomi in space if she didn't have to. Like a lot of them, she wasn't sure if she wanted to stay in Starfleet, but she did know she wanted to be planetside. Any planet, as long as she could feel a sun on her face and see stars at night that weren't streaking by at warp. They discussed both Earth and Ktaris, as well as a few other places where both could pursue their careers and Naomi would have kids to play with and go to school with.

"Do they have beaches on Ktaris?" Izzy asked. "Hawaii has a lot of beaches. Me and Mom—"

"Mom and I," B'Elanna corrected, then rolled her eyes. "And eat your lunch, Izzy. You're talking enough for the whole table."

Izzy rolled her eyes in return, but focused down on her lunch, and Tom had to fight from smirking. He was pretty sure B'Elanna had said the same thing to him on more than one occasion. "What happened to your cadet?" he asked B'Elanna, now that there was a break in conversation.

"Which one?" B'Elanna asked. "Oh, you mean Nu."

"Nu?" Izzy piped in, excited. "Are we going to see Nu?" She turned to Naomi. "Nu is _so_ cool. She's Xahean. Have you met any Xaheans?"

"No," Naomi said thoughtfully, then brightened. "I bet Seven has! We can ask her what their Borg designation is!" B'Elanna looked up, startled, but Naomi didn't notice. "I'm trying to learn all the Borg designations, but Seven doesn't want to help me. She said my mom wouldn't approve, but my mom's a xenobiologist. Of _course_ she'd want me to learn about other species."

Tom smiled. He was happy to see Izzy and Naomi get along. Naomi was the quintessential only child, spending all of her time around adults and really having no idea how to be a child. Since Mezoti and the twins left, the closest person to her age was Icheb, and the former drone was far too concerned with trying to be an adult to play any of the childish games a five-year-old—even a five-year-old half-Ktarian who looked closer to ten—should be playing. Izzy, while still an only child, had spent most of her childhood surrounded by cousins and kids at daycare and school and soccer practice, and just as B'Elanna had told him, had no problem making new friends whenever the situation presented itself.

"Xaheans are really cool," Izzy was saying. "Nu can make herself _invisible_. It's like they have their own cloaking devices! And she gets to eat ice cream whenever she wants. She used to live on Earth, when she was a cadet, but now she's an ensign—"

"Lieutenant," B'Elanna corrected with a smile.

"That's right," Izzy said quickly. "Mom said she was promoted early, because she's really smart. She's on the _Curie_ , right?" she asked, turning to face B'Elanna, who nodded. "Where's the _Curie_ , Mom?"

"The Barrens," B'Elanna said, and Izzy frowned.

"Is that close to us?"

"It's close to nothing," B'Elanna replied. Izzy frowned as she considered that, but ended up shrugging a shoulder and taking another bite of her lunch. Tom also frowned as he thought about _Voyager'_ s experience with their own version of the Barrens—the Void—and hoped for the sake of this Lt. Nu that the crew of the _Curie_ was better able to handle it than they had. Judging by the name of the ship and the fact that nobody went to the Barrens except to do research that had the potential to destabilize large regions of space, he was guessing that they were so deep in research projects that they didn't even notice the lack of stars outside their viewports.

"They're working on singularity travel," B'Elanna said to him, as if guessing what he was thinking. "We wouldn't have figured out how to make it as stable as it was without their experiments. They're working on making it more stable. And making the singularities wider and more predictable. It was the perfect assignment for Nu. I would have been happy to keep her at Pathfinder, but she said she if she had wanted to spend her entire career at some research station, she never would have left Xahea. Thankfully, the war ended a few months before she graduated. Our time on AR-558 was her only combat mission, and because she graduated as one of the few in her class with any combat experience, she had her choice of assignments. Of course, as the Scott recipient, she pretty much had her choice of assignments anyway."

"I guess you only mentor the best," Tom commented. She snorted slightly, and he remembered a few seconds too late the conversation she recounted between her and Nicki about B'Elanna only surrounding herself with the best and the brightest. And, somehow, him.

"Did you guys know the war was about to end?" he asked, and she frowned as she considered that.

"No," she finally decided. "It still went on for another eight months after we got back from AR-558. And it actually got a lot worse before it got any better."


	65. 2375

Stardate 52566  
October 2375  
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. Reg Barclay was continuing to argue with Commander Harkins, but Lt. Torres had long ago stopped listening.

The transwarp communication probes had failed. Again.

Barclay was trying to explain the 'one more thing' he could try to make it work, but Torres could tell from the look on Cadet Nu's face that that 'one more thing' would be no more successful than the last five 'one more thing's they had tried. The transwarp probes were her brain child, and no one was more disappointed than her that they had wasted six months on the project.

Well, maybe not 'no one.' Torres tried not to ever get her hopes up about being able to communicate with _Voyager_ again, but she had gotten her hopes up with that one. Nu's research was solid. Theoretically, the transwarp should have worked.

Unfortunately, theory and practice were two very different things.

"That's it, Reg," Harkins said with a heavy sigh, the third or fourth time he had said those words in that meeting. "I'm sorry. It didn't work. We need to focus on other options. B'Elanna." She blinked at the sound of her name and returned her attention to the meeting. "Where are we on propulsion?"

The short answer was, _the same place we were at for this meeting last week_ , but she kept her thoughts to herself and gave a brief summary of the various projects they had going on and the status of each. Transwarp, once the favored focus of research, had diminished somewhat with the repeated failures of the communications probe. If a former Borg couldn't turn _Voyager_ 's engines into a transwarp conduit, and the Pathfinder team couldn't figure out how to get a communications probe into a transwarp conduit, that didn't bode well for them figuring out how to get _Voyager_ into transwarp conduit from Pathfinder. Especially if they couldn't figure out a way to talk to _Voyager_.

Surprisingly, the one that had taken the lead, at least in Torres' mind, was Ensign Swanwick's artificial wormholes. Except it wasn't a wormhole, per se, and he would be more than happy to explain the difference to you if you accidentally referred to it as such in his presence. As she had discovered once already, and vowed never to repeat.

Harkins wrapped up the Pathfinder senior leaders' meeting after Torres' update. "Just a reminder, Admiral Paris is joining our staff meeting next week," he said as the officers began to gather their PADDs to leave.

"B'Elanna, be sure to have Izzy have lunch with him before the meeting to put him a good mood," Lt. Cohen joked.

"Guess my secret for placating admirals is out," Torres joked dryly. She gestured to Nu to join her as they headed back to the propulsion section.

"Sir, why do you have me go to those meetings?" Nu asked as she caught up to her. "I'm certainly not a senior leader in Pathfinder."

"It's a good learning experience for you," Torres said mildly. Really, it was so she could zone out and have someone to fill her in later if she missed anything important. "Get started on the failure analysis on the latest transwarp probe," she ordered. Nu made a face. "What?"

"I hate that term, sir," she said. "Sorry."

"Failure analysis?" Torres asked. "We're engineers, Nu. Failure analysis is 90 percent of our jobs. We can't figure out how something works until we figure out what _doesn't_ work. And there's no point in figuring out what doesn't work if we don't document and analyze the data."

"I know, sir. I just don't like the term."

Torres chuckled at that. "Call it whatever you want, but be ready to discuss it by next Friday."

* _Sanders to Torres.*_ Torres blinked in surprise at the sound of Nicki's voice over the comm channel; she hadn't realized Nicki was back from the _Veracruz_. She did some quick arithmetic and realized that they were just over 90 days since they left for AR-558.

Well, that went by faster than she thought it would.

"Torres here," she said as she tapped her combadge. "Welcome back."

* _Thanks. So, I'm obviously throwing a party. Denver, my house, in two hours. Give or take. Send Izzy over whenever you want. Oh! Bring Nu if she's available. I like her.*_

Torres smirked over at Nu, who looked surprised to hear her name. "She's standing right here," Torres informed her sister-in-law. "Want to come to a party with too many people and too much synthehol?" she asked Nu.

* _And real alcohol,*_ Nicki chimed in from the commlink. * _Not exactly a selling point for a Xahean, I know. There will be cake and ice cream, though. And a lot of people. Well, as many people as I can find who will drop their Friday night plans to come hang out in Denver.*_

"I'll be there," Nu replied.

* _Great! Sanders out.*_ The commlink closed before either engineer could say anything further.

"You don't have to come if you don't want to," Torres informed Nu. "Don't construe any of that as an order. And Denver's really cold. I think there's snow on the ground."

Nu brightened. "I like snow! The first time I saw it was during survival training."

Torres rolled her eyes and resumed her walk to her office. "I don't even know what's going on anymore," she muttered. "Two hours," she called over her shoulder. "Get started on that failure analysis."

Two hours later, Torres stopped by Nu's desk. "I'm going to go get Izzy," she said. She frowned. "You should change. Nobody's going to be in uniform."

"Oh," Nu said, glancing down at her gray and gold uniform. "Good idea, sir. And I read that it's customary to bring the host a gift, such as a bottle of wine?"

"You don't have to bring anything," Torres informed her. She was amused by the thought of Nu researching human customs for parties, and then slightly less amused when she realized that that was probably what Nu had been doing for the last two hours instead of starting on the failure analysis of the transwarp probe experiment. "And I thought you don't drink?"

"I don't, sir," Nu said. "Xaheans can't metabolize alcohol. Or synthehol."

"There's going to be plenty of alcohol and synthehol there for the people who can drink it," Torres assured her. She frowned. "Would you bring anything to a party back home?"

Nu brightened and blinked excitedly. "It's customary to bring the host a flower," she explained. "At the end of the party, the hosts consume the bouquet as a sign of gratitude to the guests."

Torres blinked, but considering the food her mother had served while she was growing up, knew she had no room to talk when it came to what people ate. "I think Nicki would like flowers," she finally said. "Just don't expect her to eat any of them." Nu snickered and nodded.

Nicki did like the flowers, a small bouquet of Xahean flowers Nu had replicated, and was fascinated to learn about the Xahean custom of eating them at the end of the night. Well, she seemed fascinated, but it was hard to tell, given how much she had obviously already had to drink. "Let me introduce you to my husband," she said. She glanced around to find Jason standing right behind her. "Jason, Nu. Nu, Jason."

"It's nice to meet you, sir," Nu said. Jason laughed and shook his head.

"I'm not in Starfleet," he reminded her. "It's Jason, or if that's too much, Dr. Sanders, but that tends to get a little confusing around here. Welcome to Denver. Nicki says you like sweets. Let me show you where the cake and ice cream are."

"And we're getting more champagne," Nicki declared as she took B'Elanna's arm and directed her toward the drinks. "Because I'm home!" B'Elanna could only smile at her sister-in-law's excitement, but didn't fault her for it. Three months was a long time to be away from normal life, and she was sure that she would be just as excited about the prospect of seeing Izzy again if she had been gone for three months. "Nice try, Navi," Nicki said, smoothly intercepting Navi's attempts at pouring real champagne into flutes, Kajsa giggling beside her. "That one's the synth. This one's for us."

Navi gave her an innocent expression that nobody believed. "Oops," she said, her dark eyes wide. Kajsa was trying to look anywhere but at the adults.

"Uh-huh," Nicki said. Her eyes narrowed. "Normally I'd think my daughter's behind this, but—"

"Do you have the champagne yet?" Ainsley's voice asked from the doorway.

"And there it is," Nicki said with a sigh. She tried but failed to keep a smile off her face. "You, my dear, are incorrigible."

"And you wouldn't have it any other way," Ainsley said cheerfully. She kissed her mother on the cheek, and for the first time, B'Elanna realized that Ainsley was taller than Nicki. Not for the first time, she wondered at where the time had gone.

"Be good," Nicki admonished her, thrusting the bottle of synthehol sparkling wine in her daughter's hands. "Go to town with that if you're going to go to town with something." Nicki and B'Elanna watched as the three teenagers took off with the bottle as if afraid someone was to stop them. "Gods help us all," Nicki muttered as she grabbed two flutes and poured from the bottle of champagne.

"You're really making me look forward to having a teenaged daughter," B'Elanna commented as she accepted the flute of champagne.

"I wasn't lying when I said I was going to get more rest on the _Veracruz_ than staying here," Nicki replied.

She did look better rested—albeit slightly drunk—and B'Elanna knew first-hand how hard Nicki had been working during her deployment, which spoke volumes for how hectic her day-to-day life was. "To coming home safely," she said to Nicki as they clinked their glasses.

"Here, here," Nicki said dryly. She took a long swallow of her champagne. "It wasn't bad," she conceded a second later. "It was a little intimidating trying to remember my trauma training at the beginning, and a little intimidating trying to remember how to take care of adults, but it came back to me real quick. I'm glad I got the experience, but I'm also glad it was only 90 days and not any longer."

"Are you taking any time off?"

Nicki nodded. "Two weeks," she said. "I have to go into the office Monday to check back in and have them confirm that Captain Meijer returned me in one piece, but then it'll be two weeks of thinking about nothing but how much I'm going to drive my kids _crazy_ by being a super clingy mom. It's going to be _so_ much fun." Her eyes shown with excitement, and B'Elanna couldn't help but laugh. "I think the war is winding down," she said a second later. "I think we've hit a turning point. Things are going to get better soon. I can feel it."


	66. 2375

Stardate 52573  
October 2375  
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. B'Elanna Torres wasn't sure if it was the sudden blaring of the alarm klaxons or the streak of a projectile flying down from space outside her window that she noticed first, but she jumped to her feet, her eyes wide as they took in the sight she was seeing.

It was a missile. Headed right for the Presidio, and she watched in strange detachment as it impacted a building. Starfleet Medical, a voice inside her head pointed out needlessly, and then she snapped out of it.

They were under attack.

They had drilled for this; she knew that she was supposed to file out of the building in an orderly manner and knew where they were supposed to muster. She ignored all of that and _ran_. She ran like she hadn't run since the Federation Championships more than five years before. Granted, there had been fewer torpedoes and less debris when she had been on that track for those last 1500 meters of her collegiate running career.

She came to an abrupt halt as close to Starfleet Medical as she could get, her eyes wide at the destruction she saw and the people stumbling out of the debris. She rushed forward to help a young medic, escorting him toward what appeared to be a muster area.

She never thought she would see destruction like this, not on Earth, not in San Francisco, not on Starfleet grounds. She looked around her again to see other buildings in similar states of destruction, buildings she had seen intact out of her office window not fifteen minutes before. She wondered if any Starfleet building had been spared.

Izzy. Izzy's preschool was in a Starfleet building.

"Torres to Sima," she said as she tapped her combadge, gingerly making her way back toward the ruins of Starfleet Medical to offer what help she could.

 _*We're okay, Lieutenant,*_ Izzy's teacher said with a patience that made Torres sure she wasn't the first parent to comm in a panic. _*We've taken the kids on a fun field trip to the basement holodeck!*_ Her voice was falsely chipper, and a second later, in a lower tone, she added, _*They don't know anything is amiss.*_

"Thank you," Torres said with a relief she hadn't realized was possible. She looked around again. "Things are pretty bad here. I'm going to help out as long as I can. If I'm not there to pick up Izzy by closing time, please call Alicia Paris and ask her to pick her up."

 _*I will,*_ Sima promised, _*but I'm guessing we're going to be open pretty late tonight. Be safe, Lieutenant.*_

Torres escorted a woman, this one likely a patient, to the same muster area as before, and this time, saw a familiar face. "Lieutenant Torres!" Commander Ao boomed. "Thank God!" One of her fellow professors in the Engineering department at the Academy, Ao's full-time job was the Chief of Damage Control at Starfleet Corps of Engineers; she was pretty sure he was here as the interim incident manager, if he hadn't been named the incident manager already. She didn't know anybody who knew more about controlling, clearing, and repairing a disaster scene than he did.

At least this one had the benefit of not being in space.

Ao waved her over to him. "You're now my deputy incident commander," he said. "Our first priority is safe evacuation. I'm putting you in charge of personnel. Good Samaritans are going to be lining up wanting to help. Your job is to make sure that nobody gets near the scene who isn't qualified."

She blinked. "How do I know who's qualified?"

"You'll know," he said confidently.

"Why me?"

"Because people listen to you," he said simply. "Put together teams and put the people who can help to work. Try to think of menial, out of the way tasks for those who have nothing to offer. Send them to the mustering site if you have to, but try not to make it look like we're turning people away," he said. _That_ was perfectly clear. "I'm not asking you to run triage, but if anyone gets to you that looks like they need medical attention, we'll have an infirmary set up real quick here. Does your supervisor know you're here?"

She flushed; she had completely forgotten that she ran away from her building without letting anyone know. "Torres to Harkins," she said, tapping her combadge. "I'm assisting Commander Ao at Starfleet Medical."

She knew the comm had connected, but she was met with a pause. _*Glad you're okay,_ * Commander Harkins finally said. * _Ask Commander Ao if he needs anything from the CRC.*_

"A comms team," Ao said, hearing the conversation. She relayed the request, and Harkins promised to pass that along.

Just as Ao predicted, people began trickling in, most asking how they could help, some just heading for the rubble that had been Starfleet Medical and needing to be redirected. Quite a few were helpful, but Torres had a lot more people 'helping out' in the rest tent than people resting in said tent.

Several hours had gone by before Commander Ao appeared at her side. "It's time for a break," he said in a voice that brokered no argument, and for once, she didn't have one to give. She was exhausted.

"Admiral Huang is the incident manager of the overall disaster," Ao commented as they walked to the rest tent. "There are five sub-manager, one at each of the worst sites."

"How many?" Torres asked. Ao sighed and shook his head.

"Headquarters was hit first, Starfleet Medical about thirty seconds later. You saw what this looked like." He gestured vaguely at the hospital. "Headquarters is even worse. The Golden Gate Bridge now has a chunk missing. Your building was hit, but I think it was evacuated completely or almost completely by then. A couple of buildings at the Academy. Not Scotty Hell, unfortunately." She snorted at that, and he smiled thinly, and then frowned. "Over a thousand dead, and still counting."

"Do we know who did it?"

"The Breen," he said flatly, and she frowned.

"The Breen," she echoed, her voice just as flat. She thought back to the intelligence report from the "They'd been in talks with the Dominion, but there was nothing that indicated…" Of course there was nothing that indicated that the Breen would attack Earth; nobody was looking for evidence of an attack. The Earth hadn't been attacked since, what, the Xindi? The Romulans? One of those conflicts before the Federation was even formed. In over 200 years, they had somehow gotten the idea that the Earth was impervious to attack.

They entered the rest tent and immediately headed for the replicators. "You're good at this," Ao said as they took their food to a table. "Once things are settled down, I want to send you to the Incident Manager's course."

Torres snorted. "Just what I need, sir. Another responsibility."

Ao gave a crooked smile and seemed to drop it. "You're still teaching at the Academy," he commented.

"I like it," Torres said simply. "I didn't think I would, but stranger things have happened."

"Your students like your classes," he said. "We're glad that Pathfinder is willing to share you. It's been good to have you on the faculty. I'd love to have you teach more classes, but I know that that last semester of your master's was a pretty big load, with you leading a team at Pathfinder and all."

She nodded. "No offense, sir, but while I like teaching, I don't like teaching enough to do that again."

Ao smiled at that. "Someday, Torres, you'll get your husband home and we'll be able to rope you into teaching full-time."

"I don't like teaching enough to do _that_ , either, sir," she replied. He chuckled and rose.

"I'd love to have you helping out again tomorrow, but I'm sure they'll need you at Pathfinder. It was good to have you on my team, even for such a short time. And I'm serious about training you to be an incident manager. Once this excitement dies down, I'm going to start bugging you about it."

She smiled thinly up at him. "I have a pre-schooler, sir. I've had a lot of practice saying no to people bugging me."

He nodded slightly. "Good night, Torres. Get some rest."

"You too, sir."

After he left, she also rose to recycle her tray, but stopped at the sight of Jason Sanders at a nearby table, his usually well-styled hair sticking up in every direction and a look of exhaustion on his face as he nursed a coffee. She changed direction and took the seat across from him. "Didn't expect to see you here," she commented. He gave her a tired smile.

"My DMART team got activated," he explained. She had forgotten he was on a civilian medical response team. "We just came off shift. I needed coffee." He glanced down at his chronometer. "Nicki should be out of surgery soon," he commented.

"I guess it's hard to be on leave when your hospital is attacked," she replied, "but I would think they would have enough surgeons with your civilian teams here that they wouldn't need a pediatrician."

He frowned, then shook his head. "Wrong side of the table," he said. "She was here during the attack and got caught under some rubble. They extracted her about an hour ago and took her straight to the OR. Some hemorrhaging and internal bleeding, but she'll be fine. You know how stubborn she is."

B'Elanna stared at him in disbelief. " _Kahless_ , Jason!" she exclaimed. "You can't—You just—"

"Relax, B'Elanna," he said soothingly. "She's in good hands. She's going to be fine. I saw her before they took her into surgery. She was joking with her rescue team. And she specifically asked that nobody tell Alicia until she's out of surgery," he said emphatically. "You know how Alicia can be."

"Kahless," she muttered again, rubbing her forehead. "Where is she? Can I see her?" He sighed and rose.

"They'll take her to recovery when they're done," he said. "I'll take you there. But you can't stay long, and again, _no saying anything to Alicia_. By the way, Syd's at the main incident command center and all the kids are the Paris'. Including Izzy."

She nodded her thanks and followed him to the recovery area, and only a few minutes later, Nicki was brought to an empty cot. "Hey, babe," she said to Jason, her voice slurred and her smile looking like it did when she was drunk. Her eyes traveled over to Torres. "I heard a rumor that there was a half-Klingon ordering people around," she murmured. "Glad you're okay. Gods, I chose the _wrong_ time to check back into work."

B'Elanna bit back a laugh, surprised to feel the sting of tears in her eyes. "Kahless, Nicki," she managed.

"I'm fine," Nicki said, her words probably as emphatic as she could make them. "I'm _tired_ , and drugged, but I'll be back to my usual smartass self in no time. I'm glad they're keeping me overnight so I don't have to deal with Mom until I have my wits about me again."

"When _don't_ you have your wits about you?" B'Elanna asked. Nicki gave a tired chuckle and grimaced.

"Ribs are still healing," she breathed. "Best not to laugh." She caught the look on B'Elanna's face and shook her head slightly. "Don't give me that look," she said. "I don't even know how many people died today. An overnight in a field hospital isn't so bad." Her eyes closed for a long second before she opened them again. "Go home. Give Izzy a kiss for me. Tell Ainsley not to worry and that I'll see her tomorrow." She reached her hand out for Jason and gave it a weak squeeze. "You should go home too, babe. You look like shit." Her eyes closed for another long period. "And I'm _really_ not good company right now," she murmured.

"I don't know about that," he joked. "You're easier to handle when you're unconscious." She wheezed out a laugh and grimaced.

"I told you not to make me laugh," she protested. Jason smiled and kissed her forehead.

"I'll see you in the morning," he promised. "I love you, Nick."

"Love you too, Jason. Good night, B'Elanna."

B'Elanna bid her good night, and then she and Jason headed out of the recovery tent. "The transporter stations here and at Headquarters are both out," he said. "They set one up a few hundred meters this way." He yawned deeply, then shook his head quickly as if to clear it. "Fuck. What a day."

Those four words pretty much summed up how B'Elanna felt about the situation. A day that started so routine, and now she had no office, Nicki was in temporary field hospital as a patient, and she had no idea what the future would hold for her. If the Breen were now allied with the Dominion, what did that mean for the war? What did that mean for her part in it? What did that mean for Pathfinder, for _Voyager_ , for Tom?

Those were tomorrow problems; she decided that she was going to listen to Nicki for once. She was going to get Izzy and give her a big hug, and then they were going to go home and go to bed, and they'd figure out the rest as it came up.


	67. 2375

Stardate 52725  
December 2375  
San Francisco, Earth

"Hey, Bakos, I'm here to take over," Lt. B'Elanna Torres called out as she entered the Pathfinder communications lab.

"Thank the gods," Ensign Bakos called in reply. She waited until Torres had joined her at the work station before continuing, "This is the most boring duty ever."

"You're supposed to working on other things when you're on duty," Torres pointed out. Bakos waved dismissively.

"I ran out of work about three hours ago," she said. "I'm been occupying my time with bad romance novels since then."

Torres smiled. "I'll send over some of my Klingon romance novels." Bakos brightened.

"Sounds fun!" she exclaimed. She grinned again before nodding over to the controls. "Here are the sectors I searched during my shift, so you'll get this next chunk. There are," she glanced at a chronometer, "fifteen minutes left on this sector. Don't forget to record your greeting, or you'll be sending out my greeting for the next twelve hours."

"Not my first time on duty," Torres reminded her. "Any big weekend plans?"

Bakos beamed. "I have a date," she said, her eyes twinkling with excitement.

"Oh?" Torres asked. "What does he do?"

"He's _not_ in Starfleet, thank the gods," Bakos said emphatically, then frowned. "I actually don't know what he does," she admitted. "I met him a triathlon last weekend, so pretty much all I know about him is that he looks _really_ good in a triathlon kit."

"That's a good place to start," Torres said with a grin of her own. "Wait. How did you meet him at a triathlon in December?"

"Argentina," Bakos explained. "Bonus: he's Argentinian." She waggled her eyebrows, and Torres laughed.

"Are you bringing him to the promotion ceremony on Monday?"

" _Gods_ no," Bakos said quickly, and Torres laughed again as she waved Bakos away.

"Enjoy your date," she said. "And your last weekend as an ensign."

She took the seat that Bakos had vacated and reset the console to her controls, the sector map on the left monitor and her students' final projects on the right. She was only teaching one class this semester—Comparative Systems—but even with only one class, she had a lot of grading to do in the last three weeks before the end of the semester. Having the students do a final project was more interesting than a final exam, but grading them was a lot more work for her.

If this duty shift went the same as her last few, she'd make a lot of progress in her grading in the next twelve hours.

Her timer chimed, and she moved the array to the next sector. " _U.S.S. Voyager_ , this is Lt. B'Elanna Torres from Pathfinder, please respond," she recorded. She transmitted the message, reset her timer, and returned to her grading.

Compared to other buildings around the Presidio, the CRC had taken relatively little damage, little enough that instead of dedicating the time necessary to move the communications, astrophysics, and communication engineering systems to a temporary building, they had just waited until the repair crews finished up. In all, they lost a week and a half of work due to the attack. Compared to the construction that still, two months after the attack, was ongoing at both Starfleet Medical and Starfleet Headquarters, they considered themselves fortunate.

Despite Nicki's predictions that the war was winding down, the Breen attack seemed to heat things up again. Sydney had taken command of Starbase 204; that close to the Breen Confederacy, they needed someone with her tactical experience to take over, even though she had had no interest in ever commanding a station or ship. The Fleet had been reconfigured to account for this new threat from a neighbor that shared a long border with the Federation; the _Taurus_ had been one of the ships moved and was now based out of Starbase 204, so she actually saw Jens a lot more than she had as Admiral Huang's adjuvant. Owen and Alicia were temporarily taking care of Kajsa, Stephanie, and Alex; the younger two would go out to Starbase 204 during the winter holiday to live with Sydney, while Kajsa, almost halfway through her secondary school career at Tucker, would stay on Earth. And seemingly, mostly in Torres' apartment, which brought Ainsley and Navi over. It was like she was raising a trio of fifteen-year-olds in addition to her own preschooler.

The timer went off again, and she repeated the procedure, moving the transponder signal from the MIDAS array another sector, sending the signal, and resetting her timer. It was probably futile, but Barclay had gotten excited about the possibilities, the way he always did whenever a new idea to contact _Voyager_ crossed his mind. They had wasted six months on the transwarp probes; she hoped that he was still looking into other possibilities while they explored using the MIDAS array, so they didn't waste another six months on this idea.

In the meantime, it was slow going. They were able to create micro-wormholes, just large enough for communication signals, by firing tachyon beams at a pulsar. The problem was, the communication signal through the micro-wormholes was very narrow, hence the need to send a new transmission, sector by sector. Dakotah Cohen had extrapolated _Voyager's_ most likely position; for the last two weeks, the Pathfinder officers had been pulling 12-hour shifts to point the MIDAS array in an ever-expanding spiral from that 'most likely' sector.

She was more than halfway done reviewing her students' final projects when she moved the array a little after 0200, and within thirty seconds, her console chimed. Distracted by a particularly creative way a cadet had decided to integrate a Romulan shield generator into a Federation system, her eyes didn't even leave that monitor as she leaned forward to tap the console. _*We've got to stop meeting like this, Torres.*_

Her eyes snapped over to the other display to see a read-out of an active commlink. She was connected. To _Voyager_.

And Tom was being a smartass on an official channel.

She couldn't help the smile that tugged at her lips. Two could play at that game, even though she could already see Owen's eyeroll when he reviewed the comm in the morning. "You're the one who keeps disappearing on me, Paris," she shot back, and was rewarded with a chuckle. "What are you doing responding to ship's hails at zero-two?" she asked.

* _I'm in command,*_ he replied. _*It's my last night commanding gamma shift, then I get two days off before I return to alpha. You have great timing, as always._ *

"Tom Paris in the captain's chair," she teased. "It's too bad we can't get visual, because I would love to see that."

* _To be fair, I am sitting at the helm,*_ he informed her. That made more sense. * _What about you? What are you doing hailing the Delta quadrant at zero-two?*_

"Duty officer," she explained. "Lt. Barclay came up with a way to talk to you, but we didn't know exactly where you were. For the last two weeks, we've been taking turns sitting at this work station, repositioning the array and hoping to get a response."

* _There's that perfect timing again,*_ he said. * _Is Izzy there?*_

"At zero-two?" she asked him, then snorted. "Hopefully, she's asleep, but your parents are push-overs and Syd's kids are also there, and neither of those is conducive to a normal bedtime." She glanced at the readout and frowned. "This is fun, Tom, but we'll be lucky to get four more minutes out of this link. I'm sending you the backlog of letters from home as well as my asks for engineering."

* _Received,*_ he said a second later, then, * _Jeni, please send Lt. Torres the ship logs since our last transmission and the letters home. Hail the captain and see if you can wake her up, and then get Lt. Carey on the line.*_

"We got them," she informed him when the package finished downloading.

* _I have Lt. Carey,*_ an unknown voice said in the background. * _Still working on a response from Captain Janeway.*_

 _*Joe, I have Pathfinder on the line,*_ Tom said.

"I sent a list of diagnostics and information requests," B'Elanna said. "Now that we know where _Voyager_ is, we should be able to connect frequently and share information back and forth."

 _*Hey, Torres,*_ Joe Carey said. _*It's good to hear your voice. Are you still working the transwarp project?*_

"We've tabled that for now," she informed him. "Our best bet currently involves artificial singularities. The results from those diagnostics will let us know if we can pursue that or explore other options."

 _*I have Captain Janeway,*_ the female voice in the background cut in.

 _*Good morning, Lieutenant.*_ To her credit, Captain Janeway hid the fact that she had been woken from sleep very well.

"Good morning, Captain," Torres replied. She glanced at the display for the commlink and did some rapid calculations. "This commlink will be open for about another minute."

 _*I'm assuming Lt. Paris remembered to send you our logs and collects of letters home,*_ the captain said, and Torres smiled.

"Yes, sir," she replied. "I wouldn't say he's been the model of professionalism, but I'll keep him anyway."

Captain Janeway chuckled. * _I'm glad to hear it, Lieutenant.*_

Torres smiled again before getting back down to business. "This means of communication is going to be more reliable than the last," she explained. "We should be able to send messages back and forth every day, and with any luck, we'll be able to get it configured for visual as well. Lt. Barclay can work with your engineering and operations system on the commlink as early as next duty shift. I sent a list of diagnostics to Lt. Carey, which I'll be using on refining a theory to use artificial singularities as a means of long-distance space travel." She saw the edges of the connection begin to fray on her monitor. "We only have a few seconds left, Captain, so I'll close by saying that it's good to hear your voices. I'm glad _Voyager_ is okay."

* _It's good to hear from you as well, Lieutenant,*_ Janeway said. * _I'll let Lt. Paris give our closing remarks.*_

The connection almost cut out, but held out long enough for Tom to say, _*I love you, B'Elanna. I'll see you soon. Give Izzy a kiss for me.*_

She smiled; she wished it would be soon, wished he was there to give Izzy a kiss himself. "I love you, too, Tom. Stay safe."

And the connection was gone.


	68. 2375

Stardate 52743  
December 2375  
San Francisco, Earth

Although the old dress uniforms would always have a special place in her heart for being the uniform she got married in, Lt. B'Elanna Torres was really glad they redesigned them. She much preferred the white and gray jacket with the gold pipping to the long gold tunic of the old uniform. She wasn't one to give her appearance a lot of attention, but they just fit better and looked better.

Of course, there was a downside to everyone having the same white jacket with the section color relegated to one stripe at the wrist: everyone looked the same, as she was reminded when she arrived at the Paris house before the Academy Ball, where there was a small collection of officers in white jackets. "Gods, Nicki, I don't understand how you can mess up wearing your _dress uniform_ ," she heard Sydney's exasperated voice from the upstairs bedrooms as soon as she entered the house. She didn't even have time to shut the door before Izzy was racing through the house in search of cousins. "And you're missing a pip! Unless you got demoted to lieutenant, jg since I left for 204?" B'Elanna didn't hear Nicki's response, but she heard Jason's chuckle and figured that Nicki wasn't missing a beat.

"At least _you_ know how to put a uniform on." She blinked, not even realizing that she had let her mind wander, missing Sydney's entrance to the living room.

"Good to see you too, Syd," she replied. Sydney and Jens had arrived from Starbase 204 about two hours before; the last time she had seen her sister-in-law had been October, when they met in Indonesia to run the marathon. It was the first time B'Elanna had solidly beat Sydney, coming in almost five minutes ahead. Sydney complained that it was station life, but Starbase 204 was huge, with plenty of room to run and designated running times in some of the lesser-used corridors, holosuites for when she needed a change of scenery when running, and was close to a class-M planet with good running conditions. It wasn't station living that interfered with Sydney's training, it was her command. Starbase 204, while spacious, had few permanent staff; there wasn't enough to keep a commander busy, so the job was dual-hatted as the operations planner for the region. Now that the Federation and the neighboring Breen were combatants, that aspect of the job gave Sydney more than enough work.

Jens was the next down the stairs, tugging at the bottom of his jacket as if wondering why it wasn't as long as the old ones. This would probably be his last time wearing that jacket with that rank, as he was getting promoted to captain in March and would switch to the white-on-white jackets of captains and flag officers. She still couldn't believe Jens, probably the least-spirited officer in the Fleet, was going to be promoted to captain and given his own ship. Tom's reply when she wrote to him to tell him the news was that the Dominion War had done for Jens' career what his own personality couldn't, and there was a lot of truth to that. They had lost a lot of ships and a lot of officers since the war began, and it was getting to the point that 'still have a pulse' was just about all it took to get a promotion. Even if that pulse was in the Delta quadrant; B'Elanna didn't know if anyone on _Voyager_ knew—Owen asked her not to talk to Tom about it—but he had submitted their personnel files to the promotion boards, and so far, all of the Starfleet crew except Captain Janeway had gotten at least one promotion on paper. He probably wouldn't wear the rank until they got home, but B'Elanna was now married to Lt. Commander Thomas Eugene Paris. And she had no idea if he knew that or not.

The promotion boards had tabled the issue of the field commissions Captain Janeway had given the Maquis crewmembers until JAG had decided whether or not they were going to charge the former outlaws with any crimes. Another thing that they didn't talk about in their messages to _Voyager_.

Nicki and Jason descended the stairs, Nicki managing to look elegant even in her dress uniform—with the right number of pips—and Jason in a well-tailored tuxedo with accents in the same color of teal as the bands at the wrists of Nicki's jacket. "Let's hear it for dog and pony shows," Nicki said with a grin, then, raising her voice, "assuming the dog and/or pony is ready!"

"Your father kept insisting he had 'just one more thing to read,'" Alicia said as she appeared from the hallway in a bright red evening gown, "and now he's fussing over his uniform."

"Almost like he's related to Sydney," Nicki said sweetly, then rolled her eyes. "Gods, I need a drink already."

"You really want to waste your one drink with pre-gaming?" Jason asked. Nicki frowned, then pouted.

"No," she admitted. When Starfleet Medical was attacked, the debris had badly lacerated her liver. The surgeons had removed and regenerated most of it, but the healing process took a lot longer than the overnight she had had in the field hospital. Absolutely no alcohol for at least six months, and no more than one syntheholic beverage in a setting for at least another few months. B'Elanna didn't see what the big deal was, which prompted a long monologue from Nicki about how inferior synthehol was to alcohol, and by the time Nicki was done talking, _she_ was the one who felt like she needed a drink.

There was a loud _thump_ from upstairs, followed by stifled laughter, and Nicki sighed. "Broken bones aren't getting knitted until tomorrow morning, so watch yourselves," she called up the stairs. Turning back to the other adults, she said, "Let's make a run for it before they test that theory."

The Academy Ball was a sea of monochromatic participants, with the white jackets of the officers, black dress uniforms of the cadets, and gray uniforms of the Starfleet band, only the occasional civilian guest providing any color to the room. "I'm going to get a drink," Jason said. "Nick, you ready for your one drink of the night yet?"

She shook her head. "There might be an occasion to celebrate with champagne later," she said. "Just juice for now. T'Pana, good to see you." B'Elanna spun at the sound of her step-mother's name to see John and T'Pana approach.

"You look healthier every time I see you," T'Pana said to Nicki, who smiled slightly at the compliment.

"That's because with the construction at the hospital, you haven't seen me in six weeks," Nicki pointed out. "I'm getting better each day," she said, more seriously. "It's a process, and I'm not as young as I used to be."

"She would probably be healing faster if she didn't insist on going back to work the minute she was discharged from recovery," Jason commented, reappearing to hand Nicki a glass of something unnaturally pink. "I guess it wasn't 'the minute,'" he corrected, frowning over at his wife. "You had to find a place to replicate a new uniform first."

They continued to make small talk for a few minutes—work, the kids, the trifecta of Navi, Ainsley, and Kajsa that had taken over B'Elanna's apartment more often than not, the latest news from _Voyager_ —and then they all wandered off to talk to other people before it was time to sit down for the dinner.

Most people continued to hang out in their small groups after dinner; some had begun dancing, and B'Elanna remembered her first Academy Ball and the stupid grin Tom had had on his face when he asked her to dance. Kahless, she had been so suspicious of him, wondering what stunt he was about to pull, how he was going to suddenly turn it into another lesson about… something. How to act appropriately when surrounded by Starfleet brass. How to keep from striking your very annoying commanding officer.

How not to storm out of the room when you saw your father for the first time in twelve years.

Her eyes went out to that patio and saw a small group of cadets sitting by the heaters, laughing, and she could still remember when that had been her and Tom, how he thought his stupid story about his haircuts came even close to the identity crisis she had had her entire life. It had been good she had held him in such low regard back then, she realized in retrospect. If she had had any respect for him, if she had even allowed the thought that he might be someone she could be in a relationship with, who knows what would have happened, to their careers or to their relationship. She winced now at the thought of what she was like for those first few years at the Academy and was still surprised that nobody had asked her to leave. That attitude she had had was certainly not conducive to a Starfleet career and even less so to a meaningful relationship, and she couldn't imagine Tom, or anybody else, putting up with it for long. Burke hadn't, but to be fair, she had gotten sick of him before he had gotten sick of her.

She wondered if she would ever be able to attend that ball without thinking of Tom, of that first ball when she had been a plebe and him her company commander, or the one a few years later, when she had received the Scott Award and he had been a few weeks from moving back to Mars, only a couple of months before their engagement. How different she had been at those two events; how different either of those people had been from the 26-year-old professor, section chief, wife, mother she was now.

She wondered if maybe someday, she would be back at that ball with Tom at her side. Based on the diagnostics Lt. Carey had sent her, there were a lot of reasons to hope that that would happen.

The sound of the speakers activating snapped her back to the present, to where she stood inside the ballroom and the awards were about to begin. Owen silently handed her a glass of whiskey; necessary for getting through the tedium of the awards. And for steeling her nerves. She took a sip of the whiskey before pulling her PADD from her pocket and scanning the words written there. When Nu asked her to introduce her for the Scott Award, she reminded the cadet that awards were usually presented by more senior officers, but Nu had insisted that none of those senior officers knew her or her work the way Torres did.

Somehow, it was easier to teach complicated engineering problems to a group of cadets than it was to explain just what it was about Nu that made her such a good cadet and engineer.

She wasn't sure how many times she had read through her speech when she noticed Commander Ao stepping forward, and knew it was time for the Shalan Award, the junior faculty award; they always had their Andorian professor introduce the award named after the Andorian engineer. "After graduating from Starfleet Academy in 2247 and serving as a junior engineer on the _U.S.S. Yang_ and _U.S.S. Denali,_ Lt. Shalan returned to his alma mater, becaming the first Andorian professor in the Engineering department at Starfleet Academy when he became an assistant professor in 2254. At the onset of the First Klingon War, he volunteered to return to the Fleet to join the fight, and unfortunately was killed in action aboard the _U.S.S. Gagarin._ Maybe it's fitting, then, that this year's recipient of the Lt. Shalan Award is our resident half-Klingon." Torres blinked in surprise; she hadn't even considered that she could be up for the Shalan, then narrowed her eyes as Owen's satisfied smile. The bastard had known and hadn't told her. "Lt. B'Elanna Torres began her teaching career at the Starfleet Technical Academy on Utopia Planitia as a project officer and graduate student. Upon completion of her thesis in comparative systems engineering, she was assigned to the Pathfinder Project at the Communications Research Center and finished her teaching requirements for her master's degree at Starfleet Academy. She officially joined the faculty as an assistant professor after graduating with her master's degree in May. Her classes have been favorites among our cadets since she returned to San Francisco, often having cadets drop in to attend lectures even when they weren't enrolled in her classes. And unlike Lt. Shalan, when she went off to war, she had the good manners to come back to us unharmed. This year's recipient of the Lt. Shalan Award in Engineering, Assistant Professor Lt. B'Elanna Torres."

Torres stepped up to the podium, her mind spinning. "I thought award recipients were supposed to be made aware that they won, so they could prepare something to say," she said, glancing at Commander Ao, who seemed satisfied that he had surprised her. "Nine years ago, I was sitting back there, with my plebe company," she said, gesturing toward where the cadets were sitting near the back. "Actually, I was sitting outside," she corrected. "My company commander had to come collect me and stop me from running away." Normally here she'd add a joke about marrying her company commander, but while it was the worst-kept secret at Starfleet Headquarters, it wasn't something that was appropriate for her to acknowledge publicly, especially not at an Academy function. She also neglected to fill in the rest of the story, the fact that she was outside and trying to run away because she had seen her father for the first time for twelve years and wasn't ready to face him or the woman he was there with. "I'm pretty sure there wasn't a person at the Academy who thought that someday I'd come back as faculty, much less be standing up here, receiving the Shalan Award. When I was given my first teaching assignment at the Technical Academy, I told Commander Winters that while I found the project interesting, I didn't think I could do the teaching part of the degree requirements, nor that a career path that included teaching would be the right one for me. He told me that at that point, I didn't have a choice and I should probably figure out how to do it." That got some chuckles. "I think I surprised everyone, myself included, when I found out that I actually enjoyed teaching. There were a lot of people who helped me get here, not the least of which would be my own professors, many of which are still teaching in the department." She glanced at the table where a lot of the engineering faculty were seated and smiled slightly. "And, of course, the cadets themselves. It has been an honor to teach them, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they will accomplish as officers." She pulled her PADD out of her pocket. "And this seems as good a time as any to transition to the next award, the Captain Montgomery Scott Award, given to a graduating engineering cadet who demonstrates promise in the field of engineering. Captain Scott began his Starfleet career as an ensign in 2241 and served for a total of 51 years, most notably aboard the _Enterprise_ and _Enterprise-A_ , and was the captain of engineering during the test runs of the _U.S.S. Excelsior._ A recognition in his name was first awarded to a Starfleet cadet eighty years ago, the year after he disappeared in 2294." He had been rescued from a transport buffer in 2369, the year Torres had been the Scott recipient, and as far as she knew, was still living in Scotland. She wondered if he knew just how much in Starfleet Engineering bore his name.

"Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu is already a brilliant engineer, but it takes more than engineering skills to be a Starfleet engineer. She's hard-working and dedicated and incredibly stubborn. She knows what she wants and isn't afraid to ask for it. I first met Nu almost a year ago, after the first lecture of Advanced Communication Network Engineering, a class she took despite being a Propulsion major because it 'sounded interesting'—her words. She wasted no time asking if she could join Pathfinder as a research intern—a questionable choice, considering that Pathfinder was still finding its legs, less than a week after we made contact with _Voyager_ in the Delta quadrant for the first time. I was still learning the names of the engineers and mechanics on my team in addition to teaching three courses at the Academy and really didn't have time to take on any more responsibilities, but like I said—Nu is stubborn and didn't take no for an answer. And I'm glad she didn't. Her research has advanced the Federation's knowledge of transwarp. It will still be years, maybe decades, until the technology advances to the point that we can use transwarp for propulsion, but when it happens, it will be due to Nu's research.

"As I said, though, her research is secondary to her dedication and her sense of duty. When we had the opportunity to take over a Dominion communication relay, she didn't hesitate to join the team to go into Dominion space, despite the obvious risks. Even when she was injured on the mission, she refused to stop. I'm not sure whether or not we could have still taken the relay if she hadn't come along, but I do know it would have taken a lot longer.

"Starfleet is lucky to have a cadet like Nu, and in a few months, we'll be lucky to have an officer like Nu. I wish I could convince her to stay with Pathfinder to help us bring _Voyager_ home, but her talents are needed elsewhere. Whatever ship she ends up assigned to is going to be lucky to have her. Everyone, please join me in recognizing the 2375 recipient of the Captain Montgomery Scott Award, Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu."

Nu was beaming when she accepted the award, that wide grin she wore when an experiment went well, or when she figured out a difficult problem, or just about any other time. "Thank you, Lt. Torres," she began. She had known for almost two weeks that she was getting the award, and was still so excited that she was bouncing on her toes. Torres envied her that giddiness, that excitement. She couldn't remember the last time she herself had been that excited; when she had received the Scott, she was half-convinced that it was some sort of prank and that her professors and classmates would reveal the real award recipient when she went up on stage to accept it. Even discovering that she was pregnant with Izzy left her with more trepidation than excitement.

Tom had that same child-like excitement, about everything: his hobbies, the ships he flew at work, new holoprograms, Izzy. He had been more excited about her getting the Scott than she had been, and she regretted that he hadn't been there to see her get the Shalan.

Soon. She was going to get him home soon, and she was already looking forward to getting annoyed by his constant enthusiasm.


	69. 2377

Stardate 54477  
November 2377  
 _U.S.S. Voyager_ _  
_Alpha Quadrant

The holodeck was already buzzing when Tom entered Sandrine's with B'Elanna and Izzy. Izzy immediately ran in to search for Naomi, leaving her parents to fend for themselves. "I thought I'd get at least a few years before she was ditching us at every opportunity," Tom observed.

"Just wait until she wants something," B'Elanna replied dryly. "Then she won't let you out of her sight." He didn't bother to explain that he was looking forward to that.

They ended up finding an empty table near Joe and some of the other engineers. He knew B'Elanna was different now than she had been when at the Academy and when they first got married; she had been reserved, hesitant, always ready to defend herself from a perceived attack. But now here she was, looking relaxed in her off-duty clothes, joking with the engineers about something that had happened in engineering earlier that day. She was self-assured, confident. Grown up. She had become the officer he had always hoped she would become, since those first few weeks of her plebe summer, and he had missed it happening.

The admiral and Captain Janeway entered Sandrine's, both in off-duty clothing. The captain was smiling, circulating amongst the crew, greeting people and laughing. Owen smiled politely at the crew as he walked through the holographic bar, but even in civilian clothes, the sight of an admiral after more than six years away from Starfleet brass made people straighten up slightly in their seats, and he headed straight for Tom and B'Elanna's table. "It's been almost a week in the Alpha quadrant, and I still can't believe we'll be on Earth tomorrow," Tom admitted as his father sat down.

"I hope you're prepared to be overwhelmed," Owen replied. "Your mother has been planning this party since B'Elanna's first successful test of the artificial singularity."

Tom grinned at the thought of his mother's parties and the way Owen barely tolerated them. He could already imagine it: the champagne will be flowing freely, with Nicki and Jason drinking more than their fair shares. Sydney would be looking disapprovingly at people, Jens would be having a conversation with a wall, Owen and B'Elanna would grab a bottle of whiskey and some tumblers and sit out on the porch, away from the crowds. From B'Elanna's stories, he guessed Ainsley, Kajsa, and Navi would try to sneak real alcohol, but he couldn't picture that. To him, the three were still prepubescent girls; he couldn't picture them as a Starfleet cadet and two prep school seniors. "I haven't heard anything from Mom," he said, frowning at the realization. Most of his crewmates were talking to family members back home and making arrangements, but he hadn't gotten anything from his mother or sisters.

"I asked her—and your sisters—not to bother you," Owen admitted. "There will be plenty of time for them to overwhelm you with attention. The least they could do is give you a few days with just B'Elanna and Izzy."

"And we all know Nicki is much more annoying in person than via comm," B'Elanna chimed in. She turned to Owen. "Alicia asked if we can have the party at our place instead of yours. As much as I love hanging out in San Francisco in November—" Tom snorted at that; B'Elanna hated cold weather and San Francisco was never warm enough for her, "it's always nice to hang out at the beach."

"It's your party," Owen said to Tom.

"I like the beach," he offered. Owen smiled at that and turned back to B'Elanna.

"I know Alicia will bring the champagne, but do you need me to bring the whiskey, or do you have some?"

She snorted. "I can't keep alcohol at the apartment," she said, "not with Kajsa and Ainsley hanging out there."

"I think you mean Ainsley," Owen said with a roll of his eyes.

"Oh, don't count Kajsa out," B'Elanna said warningly. "Ainsley instigates, but Kajsa is perfectly happy to go along with it. And now that Navi is mostly locked up at the Academy and Stephanie is back, she gets to play along when they let her. And she's even more devious than Ainsley."

"Sweet little Stephanie?" Tom asked in disbelief.

"Sweet little Stephanie is almost fifteen," B'Elanna pointed out. "If Izzy turns out like any of her cousins, I think we should ship her off to boarding school when she hits prep school." He really couldn't wait to see his nieces and nephews now, because he was having a hard time reconciling these stories with the children and infants he once knew. And he hadn't yet met his youngest nephew, who had the awkward misfortune for being named after an uncle who wasn't really dead.

"Given that Stephanie's parents are _Syd_ and _Jens_ , I wouldn't have pegged her for someone with a personality," Tom commented.

"Be nice to your sister," Owen said mildly. "What can I expect for this dinner?" he asked, clearly changing the subject.

"Expect the unexpected," Tom replied. "And leola root." He knew 'starting a restaurant' was on Neelix's list of things that he wanted to do back on Earth; he hoped for the sake of the Federation that someone destroyed his breeding stock of leola root before that happened.

Izzy reappeared with a plate full of desserts at one point; Tom was still new to the parenting thing, but he was pretty sure from his time as a child that that didn't constitute a balanced diet. B'Elanna had rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath, and he figured that if it was fight she wasn't willing to have, it wouldn't be worth it for him to have it, either.

Harry and Sue were providing background music; Captain Janeway relieved them and told them to get something to eat when she took over the dais. "I'll be brief, because we're all going to be subjected to a lot of ceremonies in the coming weeks," she said. "I've said it before, and I'll undoubtedly say it again, but it has been an honor to serve as your captain for the last six and a half years. This wasn't the mission any of us signed up for, but I wouldn't have changed a minute of it for anything. Each and every one of you has made me proud to be a Starfleet officer.

"A lot is going to be happening in the next few weeks. There will be ceremonies, there will be promotions, there will be inquests. I'm not going to lie to you; not everyone is in for a smooth ride. But I give my word to each and every one of you: I will be right there with you, every step of the way. We have faced a lot in the last six and a half years, and we've succeeded every time, because we've stood together, as a family. This will be no different.

"But that's tomorrow," she said, a smile developing on her face. "And tonight, we have this family, and this party that Mr. Neelix and Mr. Paris put together for us. Thank you, Harry and Sue, for our entertainment during dinner. I believe the Doctor and Seven promised a performance later tonight as well."

"Are we going to see a re-enactment of the Dying Swan?" Chakotay asked with a grin. Janeway chuckled.

"I think once a journey is more than enough for that," she joked back. "Mr. Neelix. Let the party continue."

There was more music, more drinking, more eating, more dancing. Tom got B'Elanna out onto the dance floor; he had forgotten how that had felt, to dance with his wife. She still had that easy grace she had always had, that way of moving that reminded him of watching her on the track, even the first time they danced. He frowned, wondering when that was. "What?" B'Elanna asked.

"Hmm?"

"You look lost in thought."

"I was trying to remember the first time we danced."

"You don't remember?" she asked with a teasing smile. "You took me out to dinner the last night of seconds year and dragged me out onto the dance floor."

"That's right!" he said. He laughed and held her closer. "You were wearing that green dress and were in a _really_ good mood."

She laughed as well. "I think I made a joke about Reyana being out of the room for the night. Or, at least, I thought it."

"No, you said it," he assured her. He grinned down at her. "That was the first night I thought I might actually have a chance."

"I was scared to death of you," she informed him. That made him frown.

"Of me? Why?"

"Not of you, really," she corrected. "Of me. Of how I felt about you. I was trying so hard not to fall in love with you."

"Good thing I'm so irresistible," he joked. She chuckled and smacked him lightly where her hand rested on his shoulder.

"I'd never had something I loved that wasn't taken away from me," she said a minute later, serious again. "I loved my father and he left. I loved running and got bitten by a damn snake. At that point, I didn't know if I'd be able to compete again," she reminded him. "I worried that if I let myself fall in love with you, that I'd lose you, too."

"And then you did," he said softly. He squeezed her hip; he would always regret that he did that to her, that there were four years when she thought he was dead.

"And then I did," she agreed. "I think I found myself when I lost you," she said after a long pause. "Navi told me once that human brains aren't fully developed until around the age 25. I don't know about Klingon brains, or my brain in particular, but I know I did a lot of growing up after you disappeared. I don't know what our lives would have looked like if we didn't have _Voyager_." They probably would have stayed on Mars, but would she have ever been a company commander and then project officer, or would she have stayed on the research track? Or would they have gone together on a ship? Would either of them or both have served in the Dominion War? Would they have _survived_ the Dominion War?

He decided that there was no point on dwelling on that; they _had_ had _Voyager_ , they had those years apart, and they were now back together. That was all that mattered. She had figured out how to get their family back together, and now they had to figure out how to stay together and raise Izzy—and maybe another kid, or a few other kids—together.

"Hey, Tom." He turned to see Joe holding up a PADD, a grin on his face. "It's time." He grinned and gave B'Elanna a quick kiss before he took the PADD and headed to the front of the room.

"It's our last night all together," he said. He watched B'Elanna return to the table with his father and shrug a shoulder in response to Owen's question. "Which means it's the last night for a time-honored tradition." He held up the PADD and was met with chuckles of people who knew what this was about. "All pools close as soon as we enter the Sol System tomorrow, so get in your bets now."

"What're the stakes?" someone asked.

"Replicator rations," he replied automatically. "Don't spend them all in one place." He grinned at the laughter. "We'll be checking the results exactly one year after we arrive on Earth. Last chance to submit bets will be tonight at 2300. We've got a lot of bets going on. So far, we have," he cleared his throat dramatically as he activated the PADD. "Number of marriages. Number of divorces—wow, that got dark quick—number of shuttles Commander Chakotay destroys. C'mon," he said, looking up. "One look at our shuttle record, and there's no way anyone's going to give him a shuttle."

"I think you took out more than I did," Chakotay chimed in.

"Destroying shuttles is literally in my job description," Tom replied. "Besides, it's fun." He grinned and looked at the PADD again. "Next bet: stardate that Lt. Commander Torres shoves Lt. Paris out an airlock. Hey!"

"Who has five minutes from now?" B'Elanna asked.

"Thanks, honey," he replied. He winked at her and resumed his reading. "Stardate that Admiral Paris shoves Lt. Paris—okay, guys, that's redundant," he said. "It's clearly going to be a joint effort. Stardate that Captain Janeway gets promoted to admiral. Number of babies. We need a clarification on this one," he said, looking up. "Is that number of babies _born_ , or do pregnancies count?"

"Well, if it's babies born, there will be one in about six months," Harry said with a grin on his face, and the news was met with cheers and congratulations. Tom grinned and clicked a few controls on his PADD.

"Which brings us to another bet. Current stardate is 54477.53, which means that the winner of the 'when will Harry or Sue announce the pregnancy' pool is… Lt. Joe Carey. Congrats, Joe. Enjoy your replicator rations."

"I'll use them for the baby shower gift," he said with a grin.

"Wait," Harry said. "You _knew_? Who knew?"

"We _all_ knew, Harry 'read-me-like-a-book' Kim," Tom informed him. He neglected to point out the obvious, which was that Sue had told Joe—her supervisor—when she found out. And Joe was a bigger gossip than the Delaney twins put together. "Congratulations, seriously."

Harry was grinning the grin he had been wearing for the last two months. "Thanks," he said. "It's a girl, by the way."

"If you want to practice parenting, I know a six-year-old you can borrow," B'Elanna offered. "For as long as you need."

"Hey!" Izzy protested.

"Hey!" Tom echoed. "I need the parenting practice, too."

"Oh, you'll be getting that," B'Elanna promised.

"Looking forward to it," he said cheekily. She laughed and rolled her eyes at him. "Last few bets: number of resignations from Starfleet, and first person to volunteer to go back into space. Ensign Harry Kim is currently the overwhelming leader; in light of the recent news that we all knew already, if anyone wants to change their bets—"

"Are you kidding?" Sue interrupted. "I'm married to him, and _I_ think he's going to be itching to get back on a ship by Friday. He's just going to have to find one that needs an engineer and is okay with babies on board." She smiled over at her husband and kissed him on the cheek. "You are predictable, babe."

The party continued for a few more hours, and it just struck Tom as he left the holodeck, a sleeping Izzy in his arms, that that was the end of an era, and the next day, a new chapter of his life would begin. "You okay?" B'Elanna asked. He smiled over at her.

"Stockholm syndrome," he joked. She smiled in return. "What happened after you found us again?"

"You know most of it," she reminded him. They had established regular connection through the MIDAS array, and between his letters and their video conversations, she kept him fairly up to date on the events of her life. "The war ended, we were able to focus on getting you home, and now here we are."


	70. 2376

Stardate 52902  
February 2376  
San Francisco, Earth

The most difficult piece of Dominion technology for cadets—and, a few years ago, Torres herself—to grasp, from a technical point, was one of the simplest—the warp coils. Once she had understood it, she couldn't believe it had taken her so long to figure out, but it required a paradigm shift in thinking about warp theory, it was that different from Federation warp cores.

Which was why she dedicated four full weeks of the Dominion Technology to the warp coils, and started the unit by going back to the basics; way back to the basics, all the way to the physics of warp theory, which she hated to teach and was pretty sure they hated to listen to.

She was halfway through a lecture about the generation of warp fields when the classroom door suddenly slid open, revealing loud noises out in the corridor and a cadet she didn't know at the doorway. Before she could ask the cadet why he had interrupted the class, he blurted out, "It's over!"

"Cadet?" she asked.

"The war!" he exclaimed. "The Dominion surrendered! It's over!" Before she could say anything, he had run off, probably to give the same news in the next classroom.

Well, there was certainly no going back to the various ways to generate a warp field after that.

She changed the monitor to the Federation News Network. * _Today the guns are silent,*_ an admiral—Rose? Ross? She was a little embarrassed that she didn't remember the name of the admiral in charge of the Dominion War—was saying. _*A great tragedy has ended. We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph.*_ She didn't catch the rest of the speech, the stunned silence of the surprise of the announcement now over, her cadets all talking and cheering at once.

"Lt. Torres?" Cadet Wesa asked. "What does this mean for this class?"

"Well, I'm guessing today's lecture isn't going to happen," she said, leaning against the podium. "But we're still going to be discussing how Dominion warp coils generate warp fields on Wednesday."

"No, I mean, what's the point in learning about Dominion technology if we're not at war with them anymore?" he asked.

"Aren't you taking History of Communication Devices?" she asked. She hadn't been sure someone with his particular coloring could blush, but he appeared so. "Sometimes there's a value in learning things that _don't_ have anything to do with winning a war. That being said, this might be the last time Dominion Tech is taught as a stand-alone course." They'll probably start including units on Dominion technology in the various courses it would fall under, such as warp drives, shields, weapon systems, and the like. "But don't think that that means that anything about this course is going to be any easier," she said warningly.

One of the pundits at FNN was discussing what this treaty would mean for everyone when Commander Ao entered the classroom. "Torres!" he exclaimed, his arms held wide. He surprised her by wrapping her in a tight embrace that lifted her off the ground. "You did it! My favorite little Klingon! You won!"

"I don't think it was me, sir," she protested. It seemed like the next thing she knew, half of the engineering faculty was in her classroom, all offering their congratulations. Most of them had deployed in support of the war themselves, in way or another, usually as a short stint in the engineering department of a ship. The cadets seemed to be getting a kick out of something, but whether that was watching the professors be more excited than they were or watching their professors embarrass Torres, she didn't know.

"I hope you cadets are paying attention." Admiral Nina Yasinski was not a tall woman, nor did she have a loud voice, but she still had one of those presences that people noticed, and the room got quiet at her entrance, the few cadets still in their chairs scrambling to their feet. "This is what happens when you make breakthroughs that change the course of history." She smiled at Torres. "My favorite protégé. I always told you that you'd go far."

Torres did accept a hug from her old mentor. "Thank you, sir. But I didn't make any breakthroughs that changed history."

"False modesty has never been your style, B'Elanna," Yasinski scolded. "Back when Lt. Torres was Cadet Torres, she spent more hours in my lab than the officers assigned to my lab," Yasinski informed the class. "She still has the record for most publications by a cadet, although she has been trying to get her own cadet to break that record. I wanted her to stay on and continue with the lab, but she wanted to get married and move to Mars to be with her husband." She looked back over at Torres and smiled. "And if I had gotten my way, you wouldn't have been assigned to fix up that Jem'Hadar ship, so I guess true love wins in the end." She smiled teasingly at Torres, who remembered the long discussions about her engagement and her career. She leaned in closer to her former protégé and spoke in a low voice. "Anton and I are having a party tonight to celebrate and we're having a lot of the faculty over. Blow off the party Alicia is undoubtedly already planning. You can party with them any time. Bring Izzy. Oh, and bring your cadet. I have some people I want her to meet."

Admiral Yasinski had the most impressive network in Starfleet Engineering. It was her reaching out to her contacts at R&D that found Torres her first job at Mars. "She's not interested in a research job," Torres informed her. She smiled slightly. "I've already tried to get her to stay with Pathfinder," she admitted, remembering her annoyance at Admiral Yasinski for the same thing.

"It's not a research job," Yasinski said. She winked. "Just bring her. It'll be worth her while." She turned back to the class. "Listen to your professor when she speaks," she told them. "Maybe she'll teach you something that you can use to win a war someday."

Admiral Yasinski and Anton Baishev, her long-term partner—not husband; "why get the government involved in a perfectly good relationship?"—both grew up in Siberia. When she decided that she was done with shipboard life and took a position as a project manager at Starfleet Corps of Engineers, they tried to settle in Siberia, but even though the day and night cycles were already off as far north as they tried living, she had a hard time orienting to the time zones when she was beaming to San Francisco for work. So, they moved, to a sprawling house built into the side of a mountain in northern Canada, directly north of San Francisco but with a similarly cold climate to what they, for some reason, enjoyed.

Fortunately, since she was so remote from anybody else and could build it herself, she was given permission to have a transporter station in her house, so none of her guests had to be subjected to the February Canadian weather.

Torres loved Admiral Yasinski's house, even though she had never seen it from the outside. Although her former mentor's specialty was warp mechanics, she had an interest in architecture, and had designed the house itself, taking advantage of the geography and scenery, large walls of transparent aluminum ensuring that the entertaining spaces had never-ending views of the mountains, valleys, and expansive northern sky, yet managing to remain warm and welcoming throughout.

A transporter tech in a dress uniform was manning the controls when she materialized with Nu and Izzy. "Sir, cadet, miss," he greeted, nodding to each in turn, an impressive feat considering that neither Torres nor Nu wore any rank insignia. The transporter room was usually unattended, but Admiral Yasinski often got a crewman when they were having a party. "Admiral Yasinski and Mr. Baishev welcome you to their home and request you join the party in the main living room, down this corridor," he said, gesturing.

"Thank you, crewman," Torres said. She knew which space he was referring to; it was impossible to miss it from the transporter room. Besides, she could already hear the party and it was easy to follow the noise.

None of Admiral Yasinski's parties had any formality to them, and this was no exception. There was no reception line; the host was lost somewhere in the crowd, which seemed to be mostly engineering department faculty, although Torres recognized a few first classman cadets and guessed most of the people she didn't recognize were engineering officers out in the Fleet somewhere and part of the admiral's well-placed network. A network which also included her, she now realized.

"Torres!" It wasn't hard to recognize Commander Ao's voice, and sure enough, the crowd parted to reveal the excited—and likely drunk—Andorian. "Good! You brought the little one! My kids need a worthy adversary. Too many pink skin children in this crowd. Come on, I'll show you where we stowed the children."

"Ao," Torres said with a smile as she followed him, giving Nu an apologetic look. "We _are_ pink skins."

"No, you're Klingons. That's something else entirely." She rolled her eyes; between her and Izzy, they were more human than Klingon, but she knew the distinction would be lost on Ao. "Oh, you brought something to drink!" he said, noticing the bottle in Torres' hand.

"It's for Anton," she said. He had developed a taste for bloodwine when Admiral Yasinski—then Lt. Yasinski—had been stationed near the border with the Klingon Empire, and often lamented that he couldn't find good vintages on Earth. She had picked up a case on her visit to Qo'noS the previous month and was happy to share with people who could stomach it.

After depositing Izzy with the other children—despite Ao's words, no kids of any species were sizing any other up for battle—they finally found Admiral Yasinski. "For Anton," Torres said, handing over the bottle of bloodwine.

"He's in his study," Yasinski said. "I'll get it to him later." She brightened at the flowers that Nu was holding. "Xahean flowers!" she exclaimed, accepting the small bouquet. "I never did develop a taste for them, but my roommate on the _Ptolemy_ was Xahean. She loved the orange ones. Come with me, Nu. The _Marie Curie_ just happens to be in the system and my friend Jamie wanted to meet you." She escorted the cadet away, already peppering Nu with questions about transwarp.

The party proceeded to get even more crowded and loud over the next few hours, everyone in celebratory moods, despite the fact that each of the engineers knew that as engineers, their jobs would just be getting started in the aftermath of the war. Ao was leaving the next day for Cardassia with one of his cadets, beginning the assessments of what the Federation would be able to offer in terms of reconstruction. Commander Winters was visiting from Mars, knowing that ships would be coming in from all over the Fleet needing the services of the Construction Battalion. The Dominion had just recently pulled back from Betazed, and word was that there was a lot to be done on that front. There were rumors about how much assistance the Klingon Empire would be asking for from their now-allies, and Torres was sure that that was going to involve her somehow.

Torres stood by one of the transparent walls, her eyes fixed on the expanse of sky in front of her. It was a clear night, and through the hazy green of the northern lights, she could see the hazy white and pink of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. She did some quick calculations and realized that she was facing toward the Delta quadrant. Toward Tom. It was a little less than a year ago that she had seen the Milky Way in the clear sky for the first time since they had made contact with _Voyager_ , and she had held Izzy on her lap as she had pointed in the direction of where her father was.

"Nu is a very bright cadet," Admiral Yasinski said as she took a position next to her former protégé. Torres smiled slightly.

"I can't take credit for that," she said. "She came to us that way."

Yasinski chuckled. "I was about your age when I had my first leadership position," she said, her eyes also out the window. "Deputy chief engineer. I've long since forgotten most of what I did on that job, but I remember the words of advice from the chief: always take a chance on those nobody else will. I had some pretty out-there engineers over the years—probably because I had some pretty out-there assignments over the years—and every time I watched one of those engineers come into their own, I remembered his words." They lapsed into silence again. "That's why when a plebe who wasn't even allowed to declare an engineering major yet, but already had two appearances in front of the disciplinary council, asked if she could do some research in my lab, I said yes. Do you remember what you said when I asked why you wanted to do research on warp mechanics?"

Torres smiled at the memory. "I said I needed something hard to think about so I didn't think about punching my company commander," she admitted. Yasinski also smiled.

"I had never been outside Siberia before I arrived at the Academy," she said, seemingly out of nowhere. "It's not as if we were ignorant of the world outside our small town or lacking the technology to go there. We just didn't leave. I find it difficult to explain why, other than to say that Siberians… we are different than other people. In this day in age, it is a choice to live there, to raise your children there."

She lapsed into silence, and then resumed. "I was eighteen when I arrived at the Academy and knew that I was different. My classmates were sophisticated, but soft. They had played sports when I had hunted and skied. They had done their primary and secondary school in classrooms and had field trips to museums and parks. I did most of my schooling in front of the fire at home and learned how to repair skis and snowcrafts and shuttles by taking them apart and putting them back together. I was the small little girl from Siberia who didn't understand their customs for how to speak and interact with each other. I was lonely and I longed for the familiar. I wanted to go home."

"Why didn't you?" Torres asked, and a ghost of a smile crossed Yasinski's lips.

"I took Warp Mechanics the second semester of my plebe year," she said as an answer. "I knew I was not ready for the class. I didn't even have all the prerequisites. I told myself, 'Ninoshka, you don't fit into this school and you can't handle it. When you fail, it will be okay for you to go home and finish your degree in Yakutsk and repair shuttles for the rest of your life.'" She smiled again and faced Torres. "I didn't fail," she said simply. "Those equations, that math… it was too difficult and I wasn't ready, but I fell in love with it. I would have done anything in order to unlock the secrets I found in those equations. So you see," she said, a twinkle now in her eye. "We both ended up marrying our nemeses from our plebe years."

Torres laughed. She tried to picture Yasinski at 18, small and quiet and alone, and couldn't. "Why hadn't you told me this before?"

"Because I knew how it felt to be that alone," she said. "I still remember that feeling, and I saw it in your eyes. We are not different, B'Elanna, but you wouldn't have believed me if I told you that. You didn't need someone to tell you that you would figure it out and it would be okay. You didn't need someone to tell you that you wouldn't be lonely forever and at some point, somehow, you would figure out how to fit in. I knew you would do that on your own. You needed someone to accept you for who you were then and give you permission to be a little bit different. You needed a lab bench and some hard math and some time, and I had plenty of those to offer." She smiled. "Someday, I hope you have a protégé who will make you as proud as I am of you. Now come on and come back to the party. We may be as awkward as any other group of engineers, but this is how we celebrate."


	71. 2376

Stardate 53041  
April 2376  
San Francisco, Earth

Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu had deployed to a war zone and been wounded in battle. She had published half a dozen papers on transwarp technology and two comparing the physics of propulsion through natural and artificial singularities. And now Lt. B'Elanna Torres was amused by the fact that she was more nervous about giving a presentation than she had been before doing any of those things. "You've talked to him dozens of times," she reminded her young protégé. "You've been to his house. You've been to _his daughter's_ house and played with his grandkids."

"This is different," Nu argued. "What if he asks a question I don't know the answer to?"

"He probably will," Torres replied, which was apparently not the answer Nu was looking for. "There's a lot about artificial singularities we don't know, and Admiral Paris asks hard questions. Just tell him you don't know the answer. His questions might point us in research directions we haven't considered." Nu frowned at that, and Torres had to struggle to keep from laughing. "Come on," she urged. "It's time for the meeting."

Cadet Chase Riley, Lt. Barclay's cadet, went first. He had always rubbed Torres the wrong way, probably because he was like so many of her engineering classmates when she was a cadet: privileged, human, male, so confident in the superiority of their knowledge that they never bothered to consider otherwise. Like Tom when he was a cadet, only without any of the charm.

"Good afternoon, sir," Riley said with that stupid shit-eating grin. "I would like to present you with Operation Watson." Of course his project had a name. "It's named after Thomas Watson, who assisted Alexander Graham Bell in the invention of the telephone," he explained. Completely unnecessary; the man married a historian and read books written in the 19th century to his children and grandchildren. He probably knew more about Watson than Riley would ever bother to learn.

Riley explained the project, which involved sending a signal through the MIDAS array in a way that would allow them to have a live connection. "It will be active for 26 minutes a day," he concluded.

"When can we go live with Operation Watson?" Owen asked.

"Later this afternoon," Riley replied. "1432, to be exact. That's when the MIDAS array will be in the right position."

"I look forward to it," he said. He turned to Torres. "B'Elanna, will you be joining us?"

She didn't see any reason why Tom would be involved in a test of a communication system, but she wouldn't miss any opportunity to see him in case he would. And there was a good chance Joe Carey would be there; it would be a lot quicker to talk directly about modifications and diagnostics than the usual letters back and forth. "Yes, sir," she said. Owen gave a nod.

"Thank you, Cadet Riley," he said. "Where are you heading in June?"

"The _Sutherland,_ sir," he replied. "I was offered to go to Jupiter Station to do research on holographic communications, but a ship's posting would be more valuable at this point in my career." Torres barely resisted the impulse to roll her eyes.

"Very good, Cadet," Owen said. "Thank you. Cadet Nu. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have for us."

"Yes, Admiral," Nu said as she rose. She pressed a couple of commands on the table and her presentation appeared on the monitor. He had asked B'Elanna for a copy of Nu's presentation in advance, but she refused. The point of the exercise was to test the cadets' communication skills and ability to present complex engineering concepts and experiments in a clear manner to someone without an engineering background.

Nu presented the background of the artificial singularities before going into the set-up of their most recent experiments, where they successfully had sent a particle from one end of the containment field to the other. Owen did have questions, and Nu did a good job answering them. "When do you think we'll be ready for larger scale experiments?" he asked.

"Research and Development is working on a flight simulator using _Voyager_ 's parameters," she replied. "We're going to use that data to design the next set of experiments."

"Tom will have fun with that," Owen murmured. B'Elanna grinned; he would, but not as much fun as he was going to have flying the real _Voyager_ through the singularity, if it came to that. "Where are you heading after graduation, Cadet?"

"The _Marie Curie_ , Admiral," she replied. Owen nodded; _that_ he knew already. B'Elanna had told him when the assignments had come out.

"Captain Mancuso is lucky to have you," he said. "Thank you, Cadets." He checked his chronometer. "It looks like we have half an hour until the MIDAS array will be ready for Cadet Riley's experiment." He stood, and the rest of the room stood as well. "Gentlemen, I'll leave you to setting it up and I'll meet you there. Lt. Torres, would you care to join me for coffee?"

They went to the mess, where Owen replicated himself a coffee with sugar—those Paris men and their sugared beverages—and a raktajino for B'Elanna. "What do you think the chances are of Cadet Riley's experiment working?" he asked as he handed it over.

"I haven't looked over the research myself," she admitted as they headed back toward the lab. "From his presentation, the engineering seems sound. And you know how Reg is."

"That I do," he muttered. "Think Tom will be on the line?"

"If anyone can find an excuse for a pilot to be on a call with Starfleet Headquarters, it's Tom," she commented, but couldn't stop the smile on her face. "We'll see if he manages to keep his mouth closed."

"Let's not expect the impossible," Owen said dryly. She chuckled and nodded her agreement.

They entered Pathfinder's communication lab to see Lt. Barclay and Cadet Riley sending the program and coordinates to the MIDAS array. "Admiral," Barclay greeted, glancing over his shoulder. "If this works, we'll have video in two minutes."

"My fingers are crossed, Lieutenant."

As Barclay promised, the comm connected two minutes later. "It's good to finally talk to you in person, Captain," Owen said, nodding to Captain Janeway. Tom was standing near the back of the room—the astrometics lab?—and Owen and B'Elanna shared a smirk at the sight of him.

 _*It's good to see you, too, Admiral,*_ Captain Janeway replied. * _How's the weather in San Francisco?*_

"Cold and rainy, as usual," Owen replied. B'Elanna barely bit back a snort of agreement; there was a reason why she had moved to Hawaii all those years ago, after all. She looked over at Tom to see him smirking at her, probably guessing what she was thinking, and she couldn't help the smile on her face at his expression.

Captain Janeway was smiling widely, her eyes going from one member of the Pathfinder team to the next before returning to Barclay and settling there. _*Lt. Barclay,*_ she greeted. * _My congratulations on establishing the first trans-galactic comm link. You've earned a place in the history books.*_

"I-I can't take all of the credit, Captain," Barclay replied. "It was Harry and Seven who suggested bouncing a tachyon beam off the quantum singularity, and Cadet Riley who ran the calculations to make it work."

Janeway's eyes went to the cadet. _*I understand more congratulations are in order, Cadet,*_ she said. _*I heard it was Pathfinder's cadet who earned this year's Scott Award.*_

Riley's face went red, and B'Elanna wasn't able to stop her smirk. She knew it was petty to feel victorious at the embarrassment of a cadet, but she didn't care. "Actually, sir, it was Cadet Ku Lia Ika Nu, the cadet in our propulsion division," she informed the captain. "She has an afternoon class on Fridays."

 _*I hope to get the opportunity to congratulate her during another meeting, then.*_ Torres had to admire Janeway's skills in diplomacy. _*And since we're probably going to be talking on a frequent basis, Lieutenant, I prefer to be addressed as 'captain.'*_

"Of course, Captain," Torres replied smoothly. Oh, she was going to be giving Tom a piece of her mind for this later, that was for sure. Especially because the barely contained mirth on his face told her that he had been setting her up for this.

 _*I understand we can expect this video link to last for 26 minutes a day,*_ Captain Janeway continued, her eyes again on Barclay. _*I will leave the scheduling to you, Admiral, but I was hoping we could dedicate one day a week to communications with Starfleet Headquarters and another day each week for conferences between your engineers and mine, as we continue to work together to find a way to get us home and to keep lines of communication open. The remaining five days a week we'll divide up for the crew to talk to their families.*_

"That sounds like an excellent plan, Captain," Owen said. He was still looking pleased, probably just at the fact that they had what seemed like a permanent way to communicate with _Voyager_ and visual proof that his son was still doing well. "I think Thursdays are usually the best for our engineers, in terms of freedom from other meetings and teaching requirements at the Academy, at least for this term." He turned to B'Elanna at that, as Barclay didn't teach at the Academy. She gave a nod in agreement; she taught Dominion Tech on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but she didn't know yet when they would schedule her for Comparative Systems in the fall term. Both Nu and Riley were in Pathfinder all day on Thursdays as well, but as both were graduating and they hadn't event begun going through applicants for new cadets yet, nobody knew what their schedules would look like. "We can always evaluate later if another day would be better," Owen continued. "As far as regular briefings with Headquarters, I agree that that would be worthwhile, especially with all we have to learn about the things you've seen over the years. As far as the timing, I'll have to discuss that with Admiral Minns and Admiral Huang."

 _*How do Thursdays work with you, Joe?*_ Captain Janeway asked Lt. Carey, who looked like he was barely awake, despite the midafternoon hour.

 _*That will work just fine, Captain,*_ he replied. _*While we're here, Lt. Torres, let me send you our latest diagnostics.*_ He moved over to a console and sent the reports; B'Elanna nodded when she received them on her end.

"Thanks, Lieutenant," she replied. "It'll be good to get to discuss things in real-time for once." It was definitely not easy to do any sort of engineering project when you had to wait a day to receive responses from queries and another day before you could send the next round of queries in reply. "Just so you know, I'll be on Qo'noS for almost six weeks, from the end of the term through the end of June, but between Lt. Barclay and my deputy, there shouldn't be any interruption in our progress."

 _*Qo'noS?*_ That was Tom; she was a little impressed he had managed to keep himself quiet for that long.

"The Klingon Empire was hit pretty hard during the Dominion War," she explained. "They've requested Starfleet's assistance in rebuilding, and Starfleet is apparently short on engineers who speak and read Klingon and have any sort of tolerance for bloodwine."

He smiled at that. _*Is Izzy going with you?*_ He seemed genuinely curious, not upset at the thought of his daughter spending time on the Klingon homeworld, and she chuckled.

"She has more fun on Qo'noS than I do," she informed him. "And speaks better Klingon than I do. We've been going pretty regularly for the last two years."

 _*By the time we get home, she'll be able to beat me with a bat'leth,*_ he joked.

"I'm sure she already can," B'Elanna shot back. She doubted Izzy had ever so much as seen a bat'leth, but that was beside the point.

 _*Why are you here, Mr. Paris?*_ Captain Janeway asked, seeming somewhere between amused and exasperated.

 _*I wanted to see my wife,*_ he replied simply, with so much sincerity and without his usual joking overtones that it almost made B'Elanna blush. Even though she was on the comm for the same reason.

* _As you can see, Admiral, I run a very tight ship,*_ Janeway said dryly, making Owen chuckle.

"Since I raised him, I don't think I can lay the blame entirely on you," he said in reply.

The rest of the time was spent on official matters, Tom actually managing to keep his mouth shut. Since Captain Janeway didn't want to get the crew's hopes up about the video communication until they knew it would work, they didn't yet have a list of who needed to be contacted for a call at what time, but she promised them that she would get them the list the next day. B'Elanna made a note to herself to reach out to the network of _Voyager_ family members and explain the situation, so they knew to be on the look out for an official communication from Pathfinder giving them their designated time.

A chime announced that they had a minute left of the comm. "It was good talking to you, Captain," Owen said. "I'm looking forward to many discussions in the future."

 _*As am I, Admiral,*_ Captain Janeway replied. _*Lt. Torres, I assume we'll be seeing you on Thursday?*_

"Yes, Captain," she replied. "I'll have Cadet Nu with me as well."

 _*I look forward to meeting her and congratulating her,*_ Janeway said. _*Thank you, all of you. You've made it a little bit brighter here in the Delta quadrant today.*_ She turned to Tom, an amused look on her face. _*You can speak again, Mr. Paris.*_

He gave her a relieved grin before turning to the screen. _*It's good to see you,*_ he said, talking directly to B'Elanna. _*Give Izzy a kiss for me.*_

"I will," she promised. "Stay safe, Tom. I'll see you soon."


	72. 2376

Stardate 53101  
May 2376  
San Francisco, Earth

It was always easy to tell when it got close to the end of the term, especially spring term. The cadets were a little bit more antsy and the professors a little bit more frustrated. The worst were the first classmen; they knew that there would be very little that would prevent their graduation and their matriculation into the Fleet, and in their eagerness to get started with their careers and their lives, they inevitably let little things drop.

Like details in final projects.

"There are nine of you who still haven't submitted proposals for your final projects," Lt. B'Elanna Torres reminded her Dominion Tech class. "And I'm sure everyone is shocked to know that all nine are firsties." That got a few chuckles out of the class. "Now, there's not much I can do to stop you from graduating if you don't do a final project in an elective class, but I can find out who your chief engineers will be and let them know how disappointed I am in you. Please don't make me do that. I have enough work to do already." She waited for the laughter to die down before concluding, "Class dismissed, see you on Wednesday." She got a few murmured apologies and promises to turn in their proposals as the cadets filed out of the classroom, but she would believe that when she saw them.

She normally stuck around after class to answer questions and help cadets with their projects, but she was in a rush to get back to Pathfinder that morning. Operation Watson, the video communication with _Voyager_ through the MIDAS array, was a renowned success. It had been almost four weeks since the first experimental connection, and in that time, they had had no glitches at all. Every day, the comm connected and got exactly the 26 minutes expected. She had had three Thursday conferences with Joe Carey, all very constructive; while they were still waiting on the finishing touches of the simulation from R&D, she had been able to help him with other issues that _Voyager_ was having, given that it was now several years old and hadn't seen a dry dock since they left UP, and the ship was running smoother now than it had even then.

And of course, Tom being Tom, he had crashed each of those three meetings. For the first one, he came in after Captain Janeway left after her brief introduction to Cadet Nu and passing along her congratulations on the Scott Award and pending graduation. He sat quietly in the back, just watching them work in a way that would have been creepy if it had been coming from anybody else, until Carey had announced at 21 minutes that all of his questions had been answered and he had nothing further to discuss. She knew a set-up when she saw one, but certainly wasn't going to argue with the free five minutes to talk to her husband, getting to talk to each other without anyone else in the room—either room—for the first time since they left their apartment on Mars that February morning more than five years before. She repaid the favor the next week; at 21 minutes, Sarah Carey and the two Carey boys came into the communications lab at Pathfinder and got to spend five minutes with Joe. The next week she had with Tom again, and she and Joe seemed to have settled into an unspoken agreement to take turns spending the last five minutes of the conference with family.

She was going to have to remember to point out to both Tom and Joe that that would have to take a pause while she was on Qo'noS.

With the success of the comm link, Lt. Barclay had started musing of a trans-galactic holographic communicator, so Pathfinder consulted the developer of the original holographic communication: Lt. Commander Kwasi Amartey, now a project manager at Jupiter Station. He had left for Jupiter Station around the same time she had left for Pathfinder, and while they stayed in touch, their paths hadn't crossed since. Starfleet Engineering wasn't a huge world, but there were several thousand engineers in the Fleet, and their specialties were different enough that they didn't go to the same conferences or worked on the same projects.

Until now.

She was surprised to see her friend and former colleague waiting for her outside her classroom door. "This place brings back memories," he mused before she could even say hello.

"How many of them good?" she asked. He grinned, his teeth shining white.

"Absolutely none," he replied.

They headed over to the CRC to get lunch; Scotty Hell had a mess hall, but Torres ate there only as a last resort, as too many cadets seemed to think that her lunchtime would be the perfect time to approach her to ask questions. "We could have done this over comm, you know," she said as they grabbed their trays from the replicators and headed for an open table, not the first time she had said that.

"Gods, I take every chance I can get to get off that station," he said emphatically. "I miss being on a planet," he admitted. She was about to make a joke about that being awkward, considering his choice in career, but he beat her to it. "I know, I know, I should have thought about that before joining Starfleet," he said in a voice that told her he had been teased about this before. "Station is life is just so… sterile. We go to the resort on Ganymede whenever we get a few days off, but it's a domed colony and still a poor substitute." He grinned again. "And my mother has been complaining that it's been too long since she has seen Oye in person. And Aja's parents are on a rare visit to Earth as well, so it seemed a good time to work on wedding plans."

B'Elanna tilted her head slightly at that tidbit of information. "That's a recent development," she observed. Lt. Commander Aja Sero was another holoengineer at Jupiter Station, specializing in advanced holographic programming and having the misfortune of working directly for Dr. Lewis Zimmerman. In the often-small world that Starfleet engineering was, B'Elanna had known her long before Aja and Kwasi started dating after he moved to Jupiter Station. As a lieutenant, she had led the team at Shipyards that had installed the holodecks on _Voyager_ and countless other ships, and even before that, she had been part of the same informal group of holoprogramming enthusiasts on Mars as Tom. She had left Mars around the same time as Tom, taking an assignment on the _Lexington_ with her husband. She had been on a pregnancy assignment on Jupiter Station when the _Lexington_ fought against the Borg attack, resulting in 96 deaths, including her husband. "When did that happen?" B'Elanna asked, referring to the engagement. Amartey grinned.

"A few weeks ago," he said. "Aja's mom is a Lunar Schooner, and they have some really strange superstitions about when it's acceptable to announce good news. We aren't allowed to publicly acknowledge it for another two weeks."

"Well, when it becomes public knowledge, file away my congratulations," she offered.

"Thanks," he replied with that same wide grin he often had. "Hey, you should come over for dinner this weekend. Aja's parents are about to be stationed on Qo'noS with the Diplomatic Corps and they will take any pieces of advice they can get. And Aja would love to hear how Tom is doing. And she has a new holonovel out that she wants to send him. Is he still writing?"

B'Elanna rolled her eyes with a smile. "He is," she acknowledged. "And they're just as cheesy as they've always been."

He laughed. "Great! Now Aja is going to make sure that we can figure out a way to send and receive holoprograms, because I'm sure she would love to run them." The two shared a penchant for overly cheesy, low-brow entertainment, what Aja had referred to as 'junk food for the brain,' much the same way B'Elanna described her own Klingon romance novels. "And her publisher is always looking for that kind of program," Amartey continued. "Apparently Aja's programs have quite the cult following."

"If I can get Tom's programs to a publisher, I'd win wife of the year," B'Elanna commented. "Let me know when this weekend, and we'll come over. I'm interested to see if Izzy and Oye remember each other at all."

"You're going to love Ghana," he promised. "It's quite hot there. After being on a climate-controlled station for so long, I thought I was going to melt. It's good to be home."

They started talking work as soon as they returned their trays to the reclaimer. "I've reviewed _Voyager_ 's specs when it comes to the holographic systems," Amartey said as Torres led him toward Pathfinder. "Lt. Barclay told me that you already have a working holographic program of _Voyager_."

She nodded. "It's just about the complete ship," she said. "I use it for engineering, but he uses it to test out programs through all of the communications systems, which involves engineering, astrometrics, the bridge, and he's probably got the thing programmed down to a few Jeffries tubes as well." She entered her code at the Pathfinder doors and he followed her in. "He's probably in there now," she said. It seemed that whenever you needed to find Barclay, it was easier just to check Pathfinder's holodeck than hail him.

She checked the holodeck monitor; sure enough, Lt. Barclay was running the _Voyager_ program. She rolled her eyes and keyed in her code.

And then frowned when the holodeck doors slid open to reveal… a mess hall? _Voyager_ 's mess hall, she assumed, given that it was in the _Voyager_ program, but why would the program need a mess hall?

It took her another beat to realize that there were people in the mess hall, people in a mix of the old uniforms that the _Voyager_ crew had been wearing when they left and what appeared to be Maquis fatigues. "What the…" she murmured, and then stopped.

Leaning against a counter, laughing and talking to a few other officers and Barclay, was Tom.

"What. The. Hell," she said, this time loudly and angrily. Her words had gotten the attention of several of the holographic crew, including Tom, who turned to face her, absolutely no recognition on his face. "Computer, end program," she snapped. Immediately, the mess hall and holographic crew disappeared, leaving Lt. Barclay standing in the middle of the room, a caught expression on his face.

It didn't take very many angry strides before she was at him, her fist tightly clenched. "Torres," Amartey said in a voice that was trying to be calming. She raised her other hand to stop him, her eyes never leaving Barclay's.

" _What_ is this?" she asked, barely able to control her voice. He looked absolutely terrified, which was probably the appropriate response.

"I-I-I—"

"You created holographic versions of the crew!" she exclaimed. "For what? To have 150 people look at you adoringly? To have 150 new best friends?"

"They-they help me—"

"You have _no right!_ " she interrupted angrily. "You can't just use people's likenesses without their consent! Do you even know—" She cut herself off, making herself relax her hand from the tight fist it was still wrapped in, and when she spoke again, her voice was again low and cold. "If you don't permanently delete the holograms of each of the crew, I will break your neck." She was usually more creative with her threats of death and dismemberment; it had amused her ensigns and chiefs endlessly back when she was on UP. Her favorite was probably when she threatened to remove an ensign's spine and use his vertebrae as socket wrenches, but there was no mirth today, and part of her was afraid that she was serious. "Do you understand me?"

He looked nervous as he nodded. "I-I…" He swallowed and tried again. "Are-are you going to tell anyone?" he asked timidly. Her eyes widened incredulously.

"You created a holographic version _of my husband_ ," she said emphatically. "Who is, in case you've forgotten, _your boss' son_. You better be damn sure I'm not staying quiet about this one." She angrily stalked toward the exit, leaving both Barclay and Amartey in the now-empty holodeck.

Torres didn't know how many hours had passed between her discovering the extend of Barclay's _Voyager_ program and when she found herself standing in a park not far from the CRC. She had gone to Owen's office directly from the holodeck and railed at him about what she had found and demanded that Barclay be kicked out of the Pathfinder Project. He had patiently listened to her fumings before calmly stating that personnel decisions weren't hers to make, which set her off again. And then she had gone to her locker in the CRC's gym, changed into her running clothes, and _ran_ , hearing Tom's voice in the back of her head: _Let's go for a run, Torres_.

Kahless. How had that man known her so well before she even knew herself?

And now she was back at the Presidio, her legs aching and her chest heaving, trying desperately to get enough oxygen into her lungs. "Lt. Torres," a pleasant voice said, and she straightened, trying to identify who said it.

She had met Commander Deanna Troi once before, when she was a cadet and the counselor was working on her hybrid certification, but she recognized the half-Betazoid right away. "Sir," she replied, and the counselor gave a small smile.

"Would you care to join me on a walk, Lieutenant?" Troi asked, and even though her legs felt like they couldn't hold her up much longer, Torres nodded her assent, and they set off. "The last time we met, you were excited about your engagement," Troi said conversationally.

Torres remembered the conversation. It was sometime in the early spring her firstie year; she had spent most of the day at Starfleet Medical for her routine exams, and Counselor Troi was assigned to assess Bayrote's treatment of Torres. They had chatted about inconsequential things for the first few minutes, and then Troi had asked her about Tom, and Torres had told her about how he had tried to slip a proposal into the conversation when she was making repairs to the Paris shuttle. "That was a long time ago," Torres finally said.

"It wasn't that long ago," Troi countered lightly.

"If this is supposed to be a counseling session, sir, I'm going to have to decline," Torres said firmly. "It took Dr. Bayrote years to get me to open up to him, and you've got a long way to go."

Troi smiled that little smile of hers again. "You have every right to be upset at Lt. Barclay," she said, and Torres barely managed to bite back a sarcastic response. "It was an inexcusable invasion of privacy." Belatedly, Torres remembered that Barclay had come from the _Enterprise_ ; given how screwed up he was, there was a good chance that he had been seeing Counselor Troi professionally, but the counselor continued before she could comment on that. "But that's not why you're upset, is it?"

"Are you saying that's not enough?" Torres asked in disbelief.

"I sense… embarrassment, in your reaction."

"If you think I'm embarrassed about what I said to Barclay, you couldn't be further from the truth," Torres assured her.

"Not that," Troi replied. "I think you're embarrassed about what bothered you. It wasn't that Reg used your husband's likeness, was it?"

Torres glared down at the ground as she walked. Gods, she hated telepaths. Her favorite thing about having Reyana as a roommate was that she had been completely disinterested in other people's emotions. "I've been married for almost six years," she finally said, reluctantly. Kahless, had it really been that long? "I lived with my husband for eight months of those six years, and I'm terrified that in the last five years, he's decided that he doesn't love me anymore, or forgotten why he did in the first place." She certainly wasn't going to get into the abandonment issues that John Torres had caused, because Troi wasn't her counselor and she got enough of that from Bayrote. "Barclay programmed the characters to only recognize him and each other," she said. "So when the holographic Tom saw me—"

"He didn't recognize you," Troi finished for her. She was astute enough to know that Torres didn't need her to state that maybe the source of the anger was less that Barclay had created holograms of the crew—which was bad enough; was that even legal?—but also the fear that Tom wouldn't love her anymore. Which she knew on an intellectual level wasn't true; she saw Tom once a week and received letters from him every day. She knew that he loved her and was hoping that he'd soon be home with her and Izzy. "Would it help if Reg reprogrammed him?"

"No," Torres said flatly. "I'm not one for the fantasies of the holodeck." And she didn't understand people who would rather live in their holographic worlds than the real one. Tom used his programs for entertainment; he didn't actually think that he was Captain Proton, or whatever his new comic book program was. Barclay preferred the holodeck to the real world, preferred holograms that he could program and control to real people that he couldn't, and she wondered often if he thought he was the person that he programmed his holograms to believe he was.

"I'm sure Reg—"

"Sir," Torres interrupted. They were back in front of CRC and she stopped to face Counselor Troi. "I appreciate that you and Lt. Barclay have history, but I'm not ready to forgive him for this, and I'm not going to stop pushing for him to be dismissed from Pathfinder any time soon. If you excuse me, I need to get a few things from my office and then pick up my daughter from my mother-in-law. I hope you have a good evening." She didn't wait for a response or a dismissal before she turned to enter the CRC.

* * *

The next Thursday, Joe and Tom were already in the astrometrics lab on _Voyager_ when Torres activated the comm link, and the bright grin Tom gave her when he saw her was enough to remind her why the real world was so much better than anything that could be programmed for a holodeck.


	73. 2376

Stardate 53141  
May 2376  
 _U.S.S. Dojeonja_

Ainsley and Izzy both had soccer balls as Ainsley was demonstrating footwork drills, Nicki was reading a text on Cardassian medicine, and B'Elanna was reviewing the damage assessments that the Klingon Empire had sent her.

It was the first quiet moment they had had since leaving Earth. Fitting, since they would be arriving at DS9 the next day and their routines would again be disrupted.

It seemed like the confetti was still in the air from graduation when the four of them boarded the _Dojeonja_ , headed for DS9. It was the opposite direction as Qo'noS, but General—no, Chancellor—Martok and Lt. Commander—Ambassador?—Worf were on DS9 on business, and Martok wanted her to meet them there and they would travel to Qo'noS together. She did remind them that she had Izzy and that primary school students didn't usually travel by Birds-of-Prey. She wasn't sure what to make of his laugh at that.

B'Elanna looked up from her reading to watch her daughter and niece for a minute. Ainsley was 16 now, a fact she still found hard to believe, even though she had been there for at her party. Sixteen and, for all intents and purposes, as Nicki had pulled her out of school for the last few weeks to join her on Cardassia, halfway through secondary school. They were growing up, all of them. Navi would be starting at the Academy a few days after B'Elanna and Izzy returned from Qo'noS, and if things continued for Kajsa the way they were going, she would be joining her in another two years, and of the three of them, it was only Ainsley who was fighting off her impending adulthood as hard as she could. She hadn't wanted to come on this trip; she wanted to finish the school year with her classmates, wanted to have the time to spend with Navi and Kajsa before Navi started at the Academy and Kajsa headed off to see her parents at Starbase 241, wanted to spend the summer holidays coaching soccer and taking holos as she had done the year before. Nicki wasn't one of those parents who encouraged her kids to grow up any faster than they had to, but she had put her foot down on this one, convinced that the time on war-torn Cardassia would help put things in perspective for the teenager a little bit better.

Ainsley looked more and more like Nicki every day, down to the long blond hair pulled back in a high ponytail and the serious look on her face as she watched Izzy's footwork intently. She was like Nicki in that respect, too. They both had that flighty air that concealed a person who took things very seriously—Nicki her medical practice, Ainsley her holophotography and her soccer. Tom had done the same thing, probably still did on _Voyager_. B'Elanna wondered if Izzy would pick that up from him and Nicki and Ainsley or if she would be more like her, wearing her emotions much closer to the surface and taking everything a little bit more seriously than it warranted.

"Do we have time to get a message to Tom today?" Nicki asked abruptly. B'Elanna turned her attention from her niece to her sister-in-law to see Nicki looking at her curiously, and she glanced at her chronometer.

"Not today," she replied. Pathfinder sent out messages every day at the start of the 26 minute connection, and that had happened three hours ago. "I can get it in tomorrow's message, though."

Nicki nodded. "I'm sending something over to you," she said, and a second later, B'Elanna's PADD pinged with the incoming message. She nodded to indicate that she got it.

"How much space do you have left for tomorrow's message?" Ainsley asked.

"A little less than a gigabyte," B'Elanna replied. Each person on _Voyager_ had a weekly allotment that could be sent or received, managed by the comm techs on Pathfinder; they probably could have gotten more per person, but the last thing they wanted to do was overload the data stream and shut it down before the video could connect. Some families preferred to send one big package once a week; some sent something every day. B'Elanna or a member of the Paris family sent something every day, so they had to keep each daily message small. It was rare that each crewmember's family used their full allotment, but B'Elanna didn't want to use her position at Pathfinder to abuse her privileges. Too often, anyway; she certainly went over her allotment when she sent Aja Sero's most recent holonovel to Tom.

Ainsley brightened. "I learned how to compress holoimages in school a few weeks ago," she said. "I could probably get two high-quality images compressed down below a gig. Izz, do you want to help me pick out two holos of you to send to your dad?"

Izzy, of course, was happy to go along with anything her older cousin suggested, and the two girls went over to Ainsley's PADD to begin perusing the holos she had saved there, and B'Elanna was a little embarrassed that she hadn't considered asking Ainsley for holos before. She had been sending Tom pics of Izzy, but Ainsley had hundreds, if not thousands, of holos that she had taken of Izzy over the years, and she was a much better photographer than B'Elanna and had edited the good ones to perfection.

Knowing that that task would keep the two girls occupied until dinner—dinner tonight was with the captain, a tradition B'Elanna suffered through every time she was a guest on a ship but knew better than to refuse—she returned to her reading. She hadn't thought she would ever prefer being on Qo'noS to being on a Starfleet ship, but at least on Qo'noS she would have something to do. The worst part about these trips was the waiting.

They arrived at DS9 an hour or so after lunch the next day. B'Elanna had never been on the station—the last time she was in the sector, when she had been called to AR-558, she had flown in and out of Starbase 371–and she took a minute to just look around and try to get her bearings, her arm across Izzy's chest to keep her from running off. The station had somehow seemed both cold and warm, the combination of the Cardassian architecture with the Bajoran decor, she guessed. "Nicki!" Dr. Solaris Jaxon greeted, the hybrid pediatrician wrapping Nicki in a tight embrace.

"It's good to see you, Solaris," Nicki said, grinning at her old friend. He was wearing commander rank now; Torres wondered when that promotion had happened, then wondered when Nicki's would be coming. "You remember my daughter Ainsley, and B'Elanna and Izzy?"

"Of course!" He enthused. He bent down to Izzy's eye level. "I remember you," he told her. "I'm guessing you don't remember me, though. I'm Dr. Jaxon. I was your first doctor."

"Izzy Paris," Izzy introduced officially, offering her hand to shake. Solaris smiled and accepted it. "It's nice to meet you."

"I reserved a three-bedroom family suite for you," he said, straightening and again addressing the adults, his eyes going from Nicki to B'Elanna and back. "Nick, assuming the transports are running on schedule, we should be leaving for Cardassia in three days. B'Elanna, I don't know Chancellor Martok's plans. He and Commander Worf are meeting with Admiral Ross and Colonel Kira about the future of the station today, but he said he'll meet with you tomorrow. Let me take you guys to the habitat ring, and then I can give you a tour of the station, or can leave you to rest—"

"We've been resting since leaving Earth," Nicki interrupted. "Please, for the love of whatever deities watch over this station—"

"The Prophets," Solaris provided.

"Right, I should have gotten that one," Nicki replied. "Please, give us something to do that doesn't involving me pushing a teenager out an airlock."

"Thanks, Mom," Ainsley said with a roll of her eyes.

As promised, Solaris showed them to their quarters–which were larger than B'Elanna's apartment—and then gave them a very lengthy tour of the station, which ended in the dining section of the Promenade right around dinner time. "We have a few choices," he said, gesturing around them. "There's the Replimat, which has the benefit of being free, and then Quark's or the Klingon restaurant, which are both a lot more fun but cost latinum." B'Elanna blinked in surprise; she couldn't remember the last time she had to deal with currency. Seeing her confusion, he quickly added, "Starfleet has a system with the merchants on the Station. Essentially, you get paid for time spent on station, which you can use to buy goods. It's kinda confusing, but you get used to it."

"I want to go in there," Ainsley said, pointing at the brightly-lit bar and casino.

"A bar," Nicki said with a roll of her eyes. "I'm shocked."

They found a table on the upper level, where Izzy could watch the excitement below with a bird's eye view while the adults and Ainsley caught up. "I want to go to art school. I mean, my secondary school is an arts academy, but I want to study it in college, too. I want to be photographer," Ainsley replied when Solaris asked what her plans were after secondary school.

"She's really good," Nicki chimed in. "Probably because she's had so much practice. She always has her holoimager with her."

"I have some holos with me," Ainsley offered, pulling out her ever-present PADD. "I did a holo essay on children on summer holiday last year, and then did a series on the response to the Breen attack last winter."

"These are amazing," Solaris said, scrolling through the holos. He looked up, his eyebrows raised. "You're not just a holophotographer, Ainsley. You're a holophotojournalist. These pictures tell a story. I hope you're planning on taking pictures while we're on Cardassia. People need to see what it looks like on the ground here. So many in the Federation are asking why we're helping our very recent enemy when there are a lot of Federation worlds hit very hard by the war. Words only go so far. It's pictures that people respond to." Ainsley blushed slightly at the compliment but nodded solemnly. B'Elanna hoped she took the words seriously; maybe it would make her feel better about getting taken out of school to go to Cardassia.

Solaris begged off after they finished dinner, reminding B'Elanna that Martok would comm when he was free to meet and telling them not to hesitate if they needed anything while on the station. A few minutes later, Dr. Bashir and Lt. Dax appeared on their way into the holosuite; B'Elanna introduced them to Nicki, Ainsley, and Izzy, and made vague promises to catch up before she left for Qo'noS, even though she couldn't remember if she had ever actually exchanged any words with Lt. Dax and couldn't think of a single topic of conversation to cover with Dr. Bashir. She should probably just put him and Nicki in a room so they could complain to each other about how difficult of a patient she was.

She finally met with Martok and Worf over lunch the next day. Halfway through the meal, they were joined by a young Klingon in a Klingon Defense Force uniform. "Lt. Torres, my son, Alexander," Worf introduced, seemingly reluctantly. "He will be joining us on the _Rotarran_ at the weapons station."

"It's nice to meet you, sir," Alexander said with nod.

"It's nice to meet you, too," she replied. Nodding to Izzy, she said, "This is my daughter, Izzy. She'll also be joining us on the _Rotarran_ , but she's not quite ready to man any controls yet."

"I'm sure we can find something for you to do at the weapons station," he said with a smile down to the almost-five-year-old. "You'll undoubtedly do better than I did on my first assignment." Worf had muttered something indistinct at that, and she noticed that Alexander pretended not to notice.

Clearly, every relationship between a fully-Klingon parent and not-fully-Klingon child was difficult.

They set out two days later, the _Rotarran_ as loud and disorienting as B'Elanna remembered from her first time on the vessel. Izzy looked around with wide eyes, probably cataloging the differences between the Klingon Bird-of-Prey and the Starfleet ships she had been on. "No leaving our quarters without me," B'Elanna reminded her as a young _bekk_ escorted them to the guest quarters. "Everyone is very busy, and they can't have a four-year-old wandering around unsupervised."

"I'm four and a half," Izzy replied indignantly.

"That you are," B'Elanna replied with a sigh. "But they can't have a four-and-a-half-year-old wandering around either, okay?"

Izzy nodded reluctantly before she turned to the _bekk_ walking with them. "What do you eat on Klingon ships? When we're on Starfleet ships, my mom just replicates me something, but when we're on Qo'noS, we eat Klingon food."

The young crewman looked uncomfortable at the question, or maybe just uncomfortable with children. "Chancellor Martok is partial to _gagh_ ," he replied, "although we have a variety of other foods on board as well. I am not certain our food replicators our programmed with any… human food."

"Do you have _gladst_?" she asked eagerly. "I like _gladst_. With sauce. I like _gagh_ , too, but _gladst_ is my favorite Klingon food."

"I believe we do. I will have the cook check."

Izzy grinned. "Thanks!" She turned to her mother. "Mom, they have _gladst_!"

"Yes, Izzy," B'Elanna said with a sigh. "I was right here when he said it. Twenty seconds ago."

B'Elanna was spending most of her time with Martok and Worf as they discussed the priorities of Starfleet and the Empire, and it didn't take long for Izzy to get bored staying alone in the small quarters on the ship. She joined them in the _Rotarran_ 's mess hall for meals, and to B'Elanna's surprise, the crew immediately took to her, several of them volunteering to watch over her while B'Elanna was working so she didn't have to be alone. B'Elanna quickly discovered just how many serving abroad the Bird-of-Prey were parents themselves and missed their own children, and not for the first time, she was amused at how quickly a bunch of Klingon parents became softies when talking about their children, the pride obvious in their voices.

She wondered if Miral had ever used those tones when talking about her.

By the time they arrived on Qo'noS, Izzy had an entire crew worth of new friends, and her extroverted personality had actually gone a long way in getting B'Elanna's acceptance among the crew as well, to the point that several of the officers had invited her and Izzy to dine with their families during their stay on Qo'noS.

In the course of the war, B'Elanna had gone from hating everything associated with Qo'noS and the Klingon Empire and just about everything that was even remotely Klingon, to finding herself with a surprisingly busy social schedule on a planet that she begrudgedly had to admit had its charms.

Kahless, how her life had changed. She was still struggling to grasp and accept those changes, and a quiet voice in the back of her head wondered if she was ready for it to all change again when Tom came home.


	74. 2377

Stardate 54479  
November 2377  
 _U.S.S._ Voyager  
Sol System

"Entering the heliosphere, Captain," Lt. Tom Paris announced as he increased the shields to pass through the helipause. He decreased to warp 3. "We'll be at Jupiter in eight minutes."

"Very good, Mr. Paris," Captain Janeway said. He could hear the smile and barely contained excitement in her voice. "We're scheduled to make our entrance in San Francisco at 1300, so we'll hang tight around Jupiter for a while."

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied. He couldn't believe it, either, couldn't believe that in just a few hours, they would be beaming down to San Francisco and he would be seeing his mother and sisters again, that he would be going to bed that night in an apartment in Hawaii instead of his quarters.

"Jupiter Station has approved our orbit, Captain," Harry said from the back.

"You heard him, Mr. Paris," the captain said. "Once we're in orbit, I don't think we need you here on the bridge until a few minutes before we begin the last leg toward Earth."

"Yes, Ma'am," he said again, grinning.

Once he set the orbit, he turned the controls over to Chakotay. "Try not to crash it into the big planet," he joked.

"Even I can manage a standard orbit," the commander replied, but he was smiling.

Paris headed to his quarters, where he expected to see his belongs reduced to one trunk and one duffel—B'Elanna had been harsh with the recycler the night before, which he should have expected, given their previous arguments when it came to decorating—and his wife and daughter before they and his father headed back to Earth on the Mackay in advance of Voyager. He did see the trunk and duffel, as well as the wife and daughter, but they appeared far from ready to head to the runabout. Izzy had adopted a stance that left no doubt that she was B'Elanna's daughter, her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face. B'Elanna looked similarly frustrated, massaging her temples with both hands. Belatedly, he realized that his father was also in the room, sitting in the chair and seemingly unaware of the tension between mother and daughter as he thumbed through a PADD. "I want to stay with you!" Izzy exclaimed, throwing herself at Tom's waist.

"I missed something," he said slowly.

"Somebody feels the need to be difficult," B'Elanna replied, as if he couldn't figure that out already.

"I don't want to go back on the _Mackay_!" Izzy exclaimed. "I want to stay with you on _Voyager!"_

"Izz—" he started.

"Izzy, we don't have time for this," B'Elanna interrupted. "We need to get to the shuttle."

Izzy's eyes narrowed and her jaw took a very familiar set. "It's not fair!" she exclaimed. "Naomi gets to stay on _Voyager_!"

"Naomi was born on _Voyager_ ," B'Elanna replied.

"So?" Izzy demanded.

"So you weren't," B'Elanna said. "And you need to go back to Earth on the _Mackay_ with me and your grandfather."

"Why?

"Because that's the way it works, kiddo," she said. "Don't make me carry you to the shuttlebay," she added warningly, and Izzy's eyes narrowed further.

"I'm staying!" she said stubbornly.

"You're not, and that's final," B'Elanna replied, just as stubbornly.

"I can stay with Dad!"

"Isela Miral Paris," B'Elanna said in tones that made the hairs on the back of Tom's neck stand on end. He knew that tone and knew how dangerous it was to be at the receiving end of it.

Tom still had to learn their argument dynamic, but B'Elanna's previous statement was accurate, and they really didn't have the time for him to learn it now. He knelt down to eye level with his daughter. "Izzy," he said gently. "I have to go back to the bridge. You can't stay with me."

"I can go with you," she said. She had completely changed her demeanor; gone was the angry six-year-old she had been only seconds before, her voice now soft and pleading, her eyes wide as she looked up at him. He knew that look; he had used it against his parents and sisters when he was her age.

Oh, he was going to be in trouble.

"You can't," he said, wondering if he got that mix of gentleness and forcefulness right. "Not on the bridge."

"I can stay with Naomi," she attempted, but he shook his head.

"Ensign Wildman is going to be busy," he said. "I don't want you to get lost in the shuffle, Izzy. I will come find you, first thing when we beam down to Earth. We're just going to be a few hours behind you."

"Promise?" she asked, and he hesitated. He didn't make promises; his refusal to do so even made it into his wedding vows. His father had made and broken too many promises when he was a kid, and the last thing he wanted to do as a parent was repeat his father's mistakes. It would be an easy promise to make and keep; he guessed technically something could go wrong between Jupiter and Earth, but tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of ships and shuttles made that journey every year without incident.

"I will find you," he said instead. "And you're going to have a very important job," he continued. "I haven't seen any of your cousins in almost seven years, and I doubt I'm going to recognize any of them. So I need you to round them all up for me and make sure I get their names right. Can you do that for me?"

Izzy fixed him with a long look, as if trying to decide if he was being serious or not. He tried his hardest to keep a sincere expression on his face, but the smirk on his father's that he saw out of the corner of his eye almost did him in. "Okay," she finally relented.

"Thank you," he said. "Now. Let's get you to the _Mackay_ so you have time to get everyone there." The _Mackay_ was also taking his stuff back—less chance of it getting lost with the rush of 150 people also dealing with their stuff—so he grabbed his duffel and B'Elanna helped him with the trunk, and they headed to the shuttlebay.

Tom gave his wife a kiss once the luggage was stowed and pre-flight checks were complete. "Fly safe," he said. She smirked.

"You too, Flyboy," she replied. "Try to get to the right place this time."

"I'll do my best," he said. "I love you." He looked into the _Mackay_ , where Izzy was already getting settled in the back. "I love you, too, Izzy. Don't forget to round up your cousins for me."

"I won't," she said, barely glancing up from the PADD she was reading. He waited for something further, which he apparently wasn't going to get.

"See you soon," he finally said. He straightened to see his father waiting to enter the roundabout.

"You did good, Tom," Owen said, clasping him on the shoulder before stepping past him to enter the _Mackay_. Tom watched the door close behind his father before he stepped to the other side of the forcefield to watch them leave.

Just a few more hours, he told himself, and then there would be some speeches and he would get to see them again. And his mother, and sisters, and, as B'Elanna put it, a whole bunch of very, very blond nieces and nephews.

It was going to be a long few days. But at least it would be a long few days with B'Elanna and Izzy.

He returned to the bridge after the shuttlebay doors closed behind the _Mackay_ , relieving Chakotay—as if a stable orbit around a gas giant really required having anyone at the helm—and turned to monitoring the _Mackay's_ progress on his console. They were going faster than the trip usually allowed—they probably had the presence of an admiral in the runabout to thank for that—and fifteen minutes after they left _Voyager's_ shuttlebay, they were docked at McKinley Station.

And at 1230, they were on their way to join them.

He had started his Starfleet career as a test pilot and spent the last six and a half years navigating the Delta quadrant and the various challenges that both friends and foes had thrown at them. He had flown a ship through an artificial singularity that connected the Delta and Alpha quadrants, but this was the half hour of flying that he had been looking forward to the most.

As a cadet, he certainly hadn't thought he'd ever get excited to see that asteroid belt again. He could still remember the first time he had flown through it when he was a kid, terrified that he would mess up and end up ramming the shuttle into an asteroid, but by the time he graduated from the Academy, he had done that flight so many times he joked he could do it blindfolded and without shields.

And then they were through. Mars wasn't in their path, but he glimpsed at the red planet through sensors before it was time to drop out of warp. "Mr. Paris," the captain said behind him, her voice thick. "Make our approach for Earth."

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied. "Entering the atmosphere." They would dock and beam out of McKinley Station, but the flight plan that Starfleet approved involved a fly-by of the Golden Gate Bridge and over the Presidio. A kids' dream, and, well, it wasn't like he had grown up all that much.

He was still grinning when they docked at McKinley Station. "Well done, Mr. Paris," Captain Janeway. "Everyone, let's get to the transporter room."

Harry's smile was so wide that Tom was sure his face was going to break, so excited that he was bouncing on his toes. Tuvok looked as composed as ever. Chakotay had that slight smile he often had as he joined them in the turbo lift. And right before the captain joined them, she turned back one last time to her bridge. When she turned back to step into that turbo lift, there was the shine of tears in her eyes.

Honestly, Tom couldn't remember a single word either Captain Janeway or his father said to the gathered crowds and crew once they had beamed down. He was just thankful that, contrary to everything Starfleet did, the welcoming ceremony was brief.

And then it was over, and he found Izzy again.

He lifted his daughter from the ground in an embrace and kissed her temple. "I told you I'd find you," he said. He gave B'Elanna a kiss before he set Izzy back down. "Now," he said to Izzy. "Where are your cousins and grandmother?"

"I rounded them all up for you," she said proudly. "Come on!"

His mother wrapped him in an embrace before he could register what was going on. "Oh, Tom," she said. "My baby."

"Hi, Mom," he replied. "I love you."

"I love you, too, baby," she replied, and when she pulled away, she was crying. "I can't believe you're actually here. It's been so long..."

"I know, Mom," he interrupted. "To be honest, I can't believe I'm here, either."

"Baby brother!" That was was Nicki, and she was on him in a blur of black and gray and teal, and he laughed.

"Hi, Commander Sanders," he teased. "I think I might have ended up in an alternate universe of some sort, because that's the only explanation for Nicki Sanders being in uniform."

"I think your wife did enough exploration of alternate universes for the lot of us," Nicki replied, her blue eyes twinkling.

"Dad!" Izzy interrupted. "You haven't seen my cousins!"

Ainsley looked enough like her mother that Tom did a double take, remembering his own sister at 17. Kajsa more resembled Jens than Sydney, but he still couldn't believe that this composed teenager was the shy ten-year-old kid he remembered. Stephanie had more of her mother in her, but there was no way that Syd ever would have ever had bright blue streaks in her blond hair. He certainly didn't recognize Christopher or Drew, and he had never met Alex or Tommy.

He wasn't exactly sure when the party had moved from the parade grounds at the Presidio to the beach outside B'Elanna's—their—apartment, but as promised, the champagne—real stuff, from France—was flowing freely. Navi was there; he briefly saw the teenager in a teal cadet's uniform before she changed, and to his surprise, John Torres and T'Pana Tulon. It was overwhelming, these people he should recognize but didn't, who he should know but didn't, this life his should have had but didn't.

It was after midnight when B'Elanna found him sitting on the beach, his bare feet in the ocean, his eyes fixed on the stars. "Running away from parties is my trick," she teased as she joined him. "We're going to have to set some rules for this marriage if you start butting into my territory."

"I just... got overwhelmed," he admitted. She laughed.

"Kahless, they're a lot," she agreed. "Your family is too much."

"Your family," he corrected. She tilted her head in acknowledgement. "I'm the stranger here."

"You'll get your land legs soon enough," she said with a confidence he wished he felt. "You want me to send them away? I'll do it."

He chuckled at the mental image. "No," he replied. "Let them enjoy the return of the prodigal son."

She leaned her head against the shoulder. "I'm glad I got to come out to _Voyager_ ," she said. "I'm glad I didn't have to share our first few days together with everyone else."

"I'm glad you were there, too," he said. "I'm glad for all of it. I'm glad you were in my company. I'm glad you stopped by my apartment on Mars. I'm glad I convinced you to marry me, that we had Izzy, that you didn't give up on me."

"I could never give up on you," B'Elanna replied, "because you never gave up on me." He turned his head to give her a kiss.

"What happened after you got back from Qo'noS?" he asked abruptly, and she returned her head to his shoulder.

"Navi started at the Academy," she said. "I had a new cadet, and then I found another new cadet, and then we got you home."


	75. 2376

Stardate 53259  
July 2376  
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. B'Elanna Torres smirked as she leaned against the railing. She watched the company of new plebes as she brought her coffee mug to her lips.

For as much as she had hated that day as a 17-year-old, she was loving watching it at a 27-year-old.

Kahless, had it seriously been ten years already?

Coach Ulshanov had given her a brutal tempo run that morning, and she was still feeling the ache in her legs as she leaned against the railing, debating the pros and cons of sitting a few meters away in the stands instead of remaining in her leaning position. Ultimately, she decided that standing would probably be better for her muscles than sitting, and took another sip of her coffee. "Morning, Lieutenant!" Cadet Dumlao greeted when she noticed her presence.

"Morning, Dumlao," she greeted the engineering major. Dumlao had been one of her more junior cadets when she taken Comparative Tech the previous fall as a third classman, much younger than most of her classmates. She had actually approached the cadet at the end of the term to ask if she was interested in working at Pathfinder, but Dumlao had her eye set on the more administrative side of engineering and declined in favor of taking the leadership track. "How are your plebes?"

Dumlao looked over the ranks of new plebes with already-evident pride on her face. "I'll get them there," she said confidently. "Well, I'll help get them there," she amended. "Cadet Vork is a strong leader."

"Think that little one in the third rank is going to make it?" Torres asked with a smile. Navi obviously heard the question and made a face at her. "She's a bit of a smartass."

"Plebe Torres!" Dumlao shouted. "Is this true?"

"My sister exaggerates, sir," Navi replied, which was not the right answer.

"Lieutenant Torres is one of the finest professors at this institution!" Dumlao replied, and B'Elanna smirked again. She was impressed with Dumlao; she had that 'stern leader' projection down. "If you are going to make it at the Academy, you have to learn how to respect your superiors! Now. Apologize to Lt. Torres!"

Oh, B'Elanna was loving this.

Navi did her best not to roll her eyes. "My apologies, sir," she said promptly. B'Elanna smiled and nodded her acceptance at the words.

"I heard you're going to be teaching Theoretical Propulsion this spring, sir," Dumlao said, turning back to Torres, and it took all of B'Elanna's strength not to make a face at that. She had hated Theoretical Propulsion as a cadet, because it was much more of a physics course than an engineering course. But that course had eventually gotten her a job with the TPG, for as short lived as that was, and with how much theoretical propulsion went into her current job, there weren't many at the Academy more qualified to teach the course than she was.

"I am," she said. "But aren't you a systems major?" Most who were interested in the leadership side of engineering majored in systems engineering, because it gave them a little bit of experience with everything. The only cadets who took Theoretical Propulsion were the propulsion majors.

"Oh, not for me," Dumlao said quickly. "I'm dating a firstie propulsion major."

"The more, the merrier," Torres said. There were only eight other cadets who took Theoretical Propulsion with her and she didn't anticipate many more than that when she taught it in the spring.

Dumlao grinned before returning to the company of plebes, and Torres chuckled as she took another sip of her coffee. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see T'Pana approach, a similar mug in her hand, although it was likely tea, knowing the psychologist's preference with hot beverages. "Just happened to be walking through the Academy this morning?" Torres asked innocently. T'Pana chuckled as she took a position next to B'Elanna.

"I know it's abusing my privileges, but I wanted to see it for myself," T'Pana admitted. The two watched in silence as Navi and the rest of her plebe company received instructions. "I remember my own initiation day," T'Pana said a few minutes later. "Twenty-one years old and definitely old enough to see this for the mind games that it is. I still don't know what I was thinking."

B'Elanna was surprised at the thought of T'Pana as a plebe, even though she knew on an intellectual level that she hadn't hatched as the lieutenant commander she had been when they first met. "I was 17 and don't know what I was thinking, either."

T'Pana smiled slightly. "I wish Navi believed me when I told her that she shouldn't be in a rush to grow up," she said, almost sadly. "But it's hard when you have as clear of an idea of who you want to be as she has always had. I didn't have that. I had so many false starts and detours and restarts. Even after I decided to follow my mother into Starfleet, I still didn't know what that would look like."

"I thought your mother was a counselor?" B'Elanna asked with a frown, and T'Pana smiled again.

"She was," T'Pana confirmed. "Which was why that was the last thing I wanted to be doing. Math was my first love and what I started to study before I went to the Academy, but my brain couldn't handle that level of calculation and concentration without shorting out. Moshe tried to talk me into joining him in the neuroscience department, but against my best intentions, I found the psychology courses much more interesting than the neuroscience courses, and I changed my major to neuropsychology in my seconds year. After graduation, it was on to get my PhD in clinical psychology. My mother still gloats." She chuckled and took a sip of her tea. "Thank you for inviting us to Izzy's birthday party," she said, abruptly changing the subject. "Has she taken off that flight suit yet?"

"No," B'Elanna said with a laugh. Tom had sent her the specifications for a flight suit in Izzy's size to be replicated, in recognition of the fact that, at five, she was old enough for the simulator division of the junior flight league. She had pretty much lived in it since, and spent the whole five minute allotment she had with her father the following Thursday talking about her first day of flight practice. While wearing the flight suit.

B'Elanna wondered if Tom had a single crewmate he hadn't bragged about that to.

She and T'Pana chatted for a few more minutes, until Navi's company was marched away to their next activity and B'Elanna and T'Pana went their separate ways, T'Pana to the still new and shining behavioral health annex at Starfleet Medical and B'Elanna to the CRC. She made a stop by the mess to replicate another mug of raktajino on her way to the Pathfinder offices and ran into Lt. Fallai, currently filling in as the head of the Comms team while they waited for Lt. Barclay's replacement to arrive sometime in August. "I have a question about cadet evaluations," Fallai commented as they headed for the lift, both with hot beverages in hand.

"Issues with your new cadet?" Torres asked. She had only had a few conversations with Cadet Sherman, the second classman communications engineering major who had inherited Riley's projects after he graduated.

"No, she's doing a great job," Fallai said quickly. "She asked for an interim evaluation from me to cover the time before Lt. Pang arrives, and I've never done a cadet eval."

"They're pretty straightforward," Torres said assuredly. "I'll help you when the time comes."

"Thanks, sir," Fallai said with obvious relief as they split off in their separate directions to their respective sections of Pathfinder.

After that exchange, Torres checked in with her own new cadet, confirmed that everything was going well, scheduled their next appointment, and finally headed to her own office. She had a message from Lt. Commander Andrews, the test pilot at San Francisco R&D who had been assigned as their liaison officer, about the data from the latest simulations, and scheduled a meeting to discuss the results and the next steps forward.

Progress was being made, enough progress that she was revising her timelines for getting Voyager home. If things continued on this trajectory, there was no reason to believe that she wouldn't be spending the summer holiday the following year with Tom.


	76. 2376

Stardate 53672  
December 2376  
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. B'Elanna Torres checked her chronometer for what had to be the fourth or fifth time in the last ten minutes. Just her luck; her weekly window to talk to _Voyager_ just happened to fall in the middle of the Academy Ball. As if it wasn't weird enough that the ball was always on a Thursday night.

"You should probably just go," Nicki said with a roll of her eyes. "You're going to fidget yourself to death if you stick around here much longer."

"I still have about fifteen minutes until I need to go," B'Elanna protested.

"I honestly don't even know why you're arguing," Nicki replied as she took a sip of her wine. "There will still be several hours of this nonsense after you get back, and you don't even like parties."

"Good point," B'Elanna replied as she rose from her chair. She finished her glass of wine and returned it to the table. "I'll be back in less than an hour."

"I'll believe that when I see it," Nicki commented.

The CRC was never completely empty, but the evenings were pretty quiet. Torres greeted the crewman at the duty desk and headed up to Pathfinder, where she found the usual group of comms techs setting up the daily connection. "You're early, sir," Crewman Aet informed her. "We won't go live for almost twenty more minutes."

"I know," Torres assured him. "I'll be in my office until a few minutes before we connect."

"Aye, sir," Aet acknowledged.

As promised, she returned to the comms section about a minute before the connection. * _I didn't realize we were putting on airs tonight,*_ Lt. Joe Carey joked when the connection went live. Torres frowned, then remembered that she was wearing her dress uniform for the ball and rolled her eyes. From the back of Astrometrics, Tom smirked but didn't say anything, as per their agreement that he could sit in on B'Elanna's meetings with Joe, but couldn't interrupt.

"It's the Academy Faculty Ball tonight," Torres explained.

* _I like the new dress uniforms,*_ Joe commented.

"They're a lot more comfortable than the old ones, too," Torres replied. "I'm sending you the latest updates from the _Curie_ 's experiments. They've successfully sent a probe to the location they were aiming for, which is encouraging. It looks like it's going to require some changes to the deflector array that are going to take some time to make, though."

It was quiet for a few beats on _Voyager_ as both men studied the data. * _That's going to affect the navigational controls,*_ Tom commented. * _I would feel a lot more comfortable if we do some actual experiments on this ourselves.*_

 _*You know why we can't,*_ Joe said.

* _We can't to_ Voyager,* Tom retorted. * _What about the_ Flyer?* Torres frowned, then realized he was talking about his shuttle.

* _The_ Flyer _can't handle these kinds of modifications,*_ Joe said in a tone of voice that suggested they had had this argument before.

Torres got them back on track, and they spent the next 18 or so minutes going over the necessary modifications to the deflector array before ending with what each party would get done before their next call the following week. Torres heard the door open behind her, but as accustomed as she was to Pathfinder personnel coming and going, didn't think anything of it until Joe said, * _That is a strong family resemblance.*_

She was already rolling her eyes as she turned to face Nicki. "I came to make sure you got back to the party when you're done," the pediatrician said lightly. "Hi, baby brother. And you must be Lt. Carey."

* _I think my role here is done for the week,*_ Joe commented. * _Have a good evening, Torres. I'll see you next week. It was nice to meet you, Dr. Sanders.*_ He didn't wait for a reply before he left the astrometrics lab.

* _To what do I owe the pleasure?*_ Tom asked with a sarcastic smile as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"I got bored at the party, and B'Elanna's never invited me to these little chats," Nicki said with a smirk of her own.

"There's a reason for that," B'Elanna replied, rolling her eyes.

* _Yeah,*_ Tom chimed in. * _You're obnoxious.*_

"Aww, you're so sweet," Nicki said. "So, I'm thinking about leaving Starfleet," she said abruptly. B'Elanna blinked in surprise; Nicki hadn't said anything to her about that, and as far as she knew, Nicki and Jason hadn't been fighting about her career the way they did the previous year.

* _B'Elanna mentioned that you've been traveling,*_ Tom commented. And Nicki had been; for someone who had sat out the majority of the war, she had spent more time away than at home since the war ended. Mostly Cardassia and Betazed as she worked on rebuilding their medical systems, but she had taken several side trips to other worlds as well.

"Yes, but that's not why," Nicki said. "Well, it is, but not in the way that you think. I _want_ to be traveling. I want to keep doing this humanitarian work and healthcare infrastructure rebuilding, but there's not a place for that in Starfleet."

* _Why not?*_ Tom asked in that simplistic way he had. * _If Dad can create a pet project to look for a ship that everyone thought was destroyed years ago,_ during a war, _why can't you create a humanitarian medical program?*_

"Because Dad's an admiral, and I'm a lieutenant commander in the medical corps," Nicki said with a laugh. "I barely have the authority to sign my own notes."

Tom snorted. * _Maybe you should leave Starfleet,*_ he commented. * _It's clearly changed you. I've never seen you take no for an answer before. Especially before you even asked the question.*_

Nicki narrowed her eyes at her brother. "I've forgotten how annoying you are," she finally declared.

* _Says the sister who barged into the five minutes I have every other week with my wife?*_ Tom asked. He made a point of turning to B'Elanna. * _How's the ball?*_

"As boring as ever," she replied. "Navi's wind quartet was selected to play a 20 minute set during dinner. Other than that, same as always." Ainsley was also there on a holophotojournalism internship with the Federation News Network, and Kajsa was there as Ainsley's date, but that was more information than he needed. "Too many admirals, not enough escape routes."

He grinned at that. * _You managed to sneak away this time,*_ he commented. B'Elanna snorted and jerked a thumb toward Nicki.

"Not that I've had any luck getting very far before someone sends a Paris after me," she replied. He grinned; a decade ago, that had been him.

* _With any luck, I'll be able to keep you company next year.*_

"Be careful what you wish for," she said warningly. "I hang out with the engineering faculty most of the night, and you know how exciting a group of engineers is."

 _*In that case, maybe I can be there to chase after you when you try to make your escape. Besides, I'm friends with Joe,*_ he asked. * _I'm very accustomed to hanging out with engineers by now.*_

"I'll be sure to thank Joe for the charity work," B'Elanna commented. The last time she and Tom had been at the Academy ball together, her firstie year, they had had dinner with Owen and Alicia, and then spent most of the time with his fellow flight instructors. She wasn't quite sure if that was a step up or down from spending the evening with the engineering faculty.

The timer dinged with the 30 second warning, and on the monitor, Tom smiled ruefully. * _I guess that's time,*_ he said. * _I'll see you next week.*_

"I'll be here," B'Elanna replied. It was Joe and Sarah's week the following week, so they wouldn't have the extra time to talk, but it was nice just seeing him when she could.

* _Glad you could join us, Nicki,*_ Tom said to his sister. * _No doing that again.*_

"I'll save it for when you get home," Nicki replied. "Take care of yourself. I love you, little brother."

* _Love you, too,*_ he said, then turned back to B'Elanna. * _I love you. Give Izzy a kiss for me.*_

"I will," she promised.

They didn't say good-byes at the end of their chats, just like they never said good-bye when they parted ways when they were together. Normally, B'Elanna would go directly from the communications lab to her own office, to jot down everything that had come up during the comm and get started on the next steps. However, Nicki was still standing there, and B'Elanna suspected that she really was there to make sure that B'Elanna returned to the party. "Ready to go pester my obvious daughter?" Nicki asked.

"She's working," B'Elanna pointed out, but did follow Nicki out of the lab.

"I know, right?" Nicki said. "Baby's first job. I get emotional thinking about it." B'Elanna tried rolling her eyes, but the smirk on Nicki's face made her chuckle. It was neither her first job—she had been coaching kids' soccer for several years already—nor was it the first time her holos had been published—FNN had run two of her pictures to accompany the article Jake Sisko had written about Starfleet's role in the Cardassian reconstruction. But beneath the sarcasm and jokes, B'Elanna knew that Nicki was proud of Ainsley, the same way T'Pana was proud of Navi, even if neither mother could remember when her daughter had grown up to the point that she was preparing for the career she could have as an adult. Sometimes she looked at Izzy and wondered how she would handle it in another decade or so.

Back at the Ball, B'Elanna complimented Navi on her quartet's performance before she was swept up by the usual batch of engineering faculty. "How's Pathfinder going?" Admiral Chapman asked as he handed her a glass of whiskey.

"Everything's still on track," she replied. "I'm happy to give you a tour of the lab and our experiments, whenever you want to come over." It was a playful ribbing, mostly at his statement back when she started at Pathfinder that no self-respecting propulsion engineer would ever step into the CRC voluntarily. He chuckled and shook his head slightly.

"Now, you know I can't do that, Lieutenant," he said, just as playfully. He took a drink out of his own glass before saying, "I have good news and bad news, Torres."

"Okay," she replied with a slight chuckle, knowing he wouldn't be giving truly bad news while surrounded by other faculty members at the ball. "I'll take the bad news."

"Nobody takes the bad news first, Torres," Commander Tucci protested.

"She's Klingon," Commander Ao pointed out. As if anybody had forgotten.

Chapman smiled slightly at the exchange. "I need you to cover one of the classes of Engineering 2," he said to Torres, and she coughed at the whiskey she was sipping at that.

"Seriously, sir?" she asked. The first and second engineering courses were required of all Academy plebes, regardless of major, and covered little more than the difference between a hyperspanner and an optronic coupler. The classes were either taught by full-time faculty, like Admiral Chapman, or graduate students. Torres had avoided it while she was working on her master's degree because of her time teaching at the Technical Academy and the wartime need to quickly educate as many engineering cadets in Dominion technology as possible.

"I know it's not your cup of tea," Chapman said, and sounded genuinely apologetic. "But Kaila got called up to the _Motlholo_ at the last minute. It's a standardized lesson plan with standardized exams. You won't have to create anything new to teach the course, and lab assistants will be teaching the lab portions."

Torres sighed. She wanted to argue but didn't. Admiral Chapman kept her on the tenure track despite the fact that she only taught one class a semester, which should have classified her as adjunct faculty. "What's the good news, sir?"

He looked confused about the question, then laughed. "I expected you to pick the good news first," he admitted. "And that was that karma was about to visit you." She must have looked confused, because he said, "You're going to get to find out how your first professors felt when you were in your plebe classes."

She groaned. "That's _not_ good news, sir!" she protested. "And _you_ were my first engineering professor!" He grinned and winked, and she groaned again. "I don't know why I let you talk me into this," she grumbled. "I already have a full-time job. I really don't need another one."

"When Nina told me, back when you started in her lab, that you would someday end up paying Starfleet back in dividends, I don't think this is quite what she had in mind," Chapman continued.

"Sir, you are enjoying this way too much," Torres protested, and he grinned and nodded.

"Did your parents ever tell you that someday you would have a child just like you?" he asked. She rolled her eyes.

"I seem to remember being told that," she said dryly. She didn't know if it was fortunate or not that she had somehow received Tom's karmic punishment instead of her own.

"It's the same thing with teaching," he continued. "And oh, I hope you have fun."

"I should have quit," she said. "After how much you argued with me my plebe year, I should have dropped out of the Academy."

"And deprive me of this moment?" he teased, then became serious again. "If it's too much, just let me know."

She sighed and shook her head. "I can handle it, sir."

"I know you can, Torres," he said. "That's why I never would have let you quit. Despite how much of a pain in the ass you were in class."


	77. 2377

Stardate 53898  
March 2377  
San Francisco, Earth

Back in January, Lt. B'Elanna Torres had initially been annoyed that the class of Engineering 2 she taught was the one that included her sister. And then she had had more interactions with some of the other 200 or so plebes in the class, and Cadet Naviana Torres was, by far, the least of her concerns.

She didn't know how Admiral Chapman did it. As the dean of the College of Engineering, he was busy enough that he could have gotten away with not teaching, or at least taken the pick of the classes to teach, and instead, each semester he taught two classes of the introductory series. He claimed to love the introductory courses and the spark of interest and understanding that came into the eyes of new cadets, and had probably converted hundreds of plebes into engineering majors over the decades, but even if only one in every ten classes had one Cadet Shava—or Cadet B'Elanna Torres—she couldn't understand how he wasn't driven to retirement to a mental institution years ago.

Even with the two classes, she was still only teaching on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, going from the large auditorium in Scotty Hell for the early morning iteration of Engineering 2—which probably contributed to how painful it was, for both the professor and the cadets—straight to one of the small seminar rooms with the twelve cadets taking Theoretical Propulsion, eleven firsties who had to be the only firsties who wouldn't neglect the final project in a spring semester class—it took a special sort to want to take Theoretical Propulsion—and Cadet Yuiv, who was not only Torres' cadet at Pathfinder and an engineering physics major, but was also a second classman and for some reason, actually enjoyed the class. The excitement she saw on Yuiv's face as she worked through some of the more esoteric theorems almost made the headache of dealing with the 200 cadets in Engineering 2 worth it.

Almost.

She was almost finished with a lecture about shuttlecraft impulse drive mechanics when she saw a familiar green hand shoot into the air. "Cadet Shava," Torres said, hoping she kept the sigh out of her voice.

"Sir, isn't recalibrating the magnetic constrictors the first step in diagnosing an impulse drive malfunction?" the cadet asked.

"Yes," Torres said simply. "But that's beyond the scope of this lecture and this class. That will come in Impulse Mechanics 1."

"But sir," Shava interrupted. "If the point of this class is familiarize new cadets with basic engineering in order for survival in the case of an emergency where an actual engineer isn't available, shouldn't we be covering diagnosing and repairing malfunctions?"

This time, Torres did sigh. Cadet Shava brought this up at least once a week, usually with that obnoxious smirk on her face as she did so, as if she was making some great point that nobody had ever made before.

Fortunately, she was saved by the alarm ending class. "We have another lecture on shuttle impulse drive mechanics on Friday, so reread the relevant sections in the text. Or read it for the first time. Whichever may apply." The cadets were loud as they filed out of the auditorium through all of the four exits, but Torres wasn't paying attention as she disconnected her PADD, slipping it into her bag as she headed for the door.

"Noon?" Navi asked as she fell in step beside her. Since the semester began, they had been meeting for lunch on Wednesdays.

"I'll be there," B'Elanna replied.

"Don't be late. _Again._ " Navi said with a grin. B'Elanna gave her a look.

"Watch yourself, _Cadet_ ," she said warningly.

"My apologies, s _ir,_ " Navi emphasized, still grinning as she peeled off in the opposite direction. B'Elanna rolled her eyes.

"Lieutenant Torres?" She turned to see Cadet Shava walked a few steps behind her.

"I'm teaching another course in six minutes, Cadet," she said brusquely. "Make it quick. Unless you're planning on sitting in on a lecture in transwarp theory."

"Yes, sir," Shava said quickly. "I just had a question about the utility—"

"Cadet," Torres interrupted, her voice firm. "I am more than happy to explain any questions you may have, in however much detail you would like. But I don't have time for that between classes. I have office hours this afternoon from 1330 to 1530. Please come by then."

"Yes, sir," Shava replied, sounding rebuffed.

Torres ran Theoretical Propulsion as a student-led seminar-based class instead of lecture-based. She spent half of the class on Mondays with a lecture to give the engineering of a new topic, but the rest of the class was on the cadets. She assigned them journal articles to read and present, and the cadet leading that day's seminar was responsible for teaching the physics and the engineering covered in the journal article, with her there to guide them back on track when they didn't understand or teach things quite as well as they could have. They were in the transwarp unit, and that day's journal article was one of Nu's; Torres barely had to pay attention to catch any mistakes, the hours upon hours she spent reviewing the math and engineering in that paper before Nu could submit it still firmly implanted in her mind.

"Thank you, Cadet Vieira," Torres said when the cadet finished answering the last question with three minutes left of the class. "That was a clear and thorough explanation. Cadet Patiotis will be leading our discussion on Friday. Everyone, make sure you read through it and the supplemental materials before class. Cadet Patiotis, if you have any last-minute questions or issues, I'll be in for office hours today."

"Yes, sir," Patiotis said with a nod. "You'll be in the office in Scotty Hell?" She nodded; there were a series of offices in the building that faculty who had offices away from the Academy could use for their office hours. She had no idea how many other faculty members used her particular office on other days of the week, but it served her purposes for the two hours she needed it every Wednesday afternoon.

"In that case, class dismissed, I'll see everyone on Friday."

Navi was already seated at the mess when B'Elanna grabbed her tray from the replicator. "I think I've decided on a major," she said without preamble as B'Elanna joined her.

"Not neuroscience?" B'Elanna asked with a frown. Navi was already doing research in Dr. Zalun's lab over at Starfleet Medical. She waved dismissively.

"I'll have plenty of time for that during med school and residency," she said confidently. "I figure, I only have these four years of my life to be something _other_ than a doctor, so I should do something different. Biomedical engineering," she said proudly, and B'Elanna laughed.

"Biomedical engineering," she echoed. "The _last_ thing this family needs is another engineer." Navi rolled her eyes.

"Everyone tells me I'm _so_ much like Mom," she said. "So I figured I'd do something that's a little like Dad. Besides, this way if any of my equipment breaks someday when I'm on a ship or station or the middle of a battlefield, I'll be able to fix it myself instead of taking an engineer's time away from something more valuable they could be doing."

"Fixing medical equipment is a pretty valuable use of time," B'Elanna pointed out. She had found herself doing that for Nicki more than once in the few days they were on AR-558. "I think any engineer you'll someday be serving with would agree that they'd rather have you being a doctor than trying to be an engineer."

Navi shrugged. "Well, I'm going to be both," she said confidently, and B'Elanna found herself smiling and shaking her head slightly.

"You are certainly going to be something," she replied. "No taking any more of my classes," she said warningly. Navi flashed her a quick grin and then became serious.

"You really are a good professor," she said. "That's why Shava is always asking questions in class."

B'Elanna groaned. "Don't tell me she's one of your friends."

"She's my roommate," Navi replied, and B'Elanna groaned again. She knew Navi only had one roommate, instead of the usual four-pack that plebes usually had. Navi might have explained why to her, but she couldn't remember.

"She's your roommate," she echoed, and Navi nodded.

"Orions can't room with humans," she explained. "Shava takes treatments to suppress her pheromones, and it works, but it's not 100%, and human women get headaches from Orion pheromones. Other species have other reactions, too. Vulcans aren't affected, and I guess my physiology is Vulcan enough. And my personality human enough or Betazoid enough that I can deal with having an Orion roommate. Can you imagine Shava in a room with Vulcans?"

B'Elanna couldn't. "But Shava's not fully Orion, is she?" she asked. The cadet in question had very Vulcan-like ears and eyebrows. B'Elanna had never met an Orion in person, but she was pretty sure they didn't look like nauseated Vulcans.

"Her father's Romulan. Tal Shiar, actually. And her mother's a leader in the Orion Syndicate." Navi's eyes were shining with excitement at telling about her roommate's bloodline.

"An Orion Syndicate leader and Tal Shiar operative," B'Elanna echoed. "How the hell do they meet and have a child?"

Navi shrugged. "Members of two of the most notorious organizations in the quadrant? Who the hell knows? Maybe they have 'how to commit crimes and make everyone afraid of you' conferences or something."

"And then Shava decides to rebel against both of her parents and run away to the Federation and join Starfleet," B'Elanna said dryly. Navi looked up at her and raised one eyebrow in a perfectly Vulcan expression. "Don't even say it," B'Elanna said warningly.

"Say what?" Navi asked innocently. "Do you have something Shava could do at Pathfinder?" she asked abruptly, the words coming out quickly, and B'Elanna actually dropped her fork in surprise.

"She wants to work at Pathfinder?" she asked, then shook her head slightly. "Even if we had something for another cadet to do, this is very advanced engineering," she said. "Shava's smart, I'll give you that, but this is not plebe-level work."

"Admiral Yasinski found something for you to do," Navi shot back. "Warp mechanics is hardly plebe-level work, either." B'Elanna narrowed her eyes, but Navi wasn't deterred. "She's the only Orion _and_ the only Romulan in Starfleet," she said quickly, as if afraid that she wouldn't finish her speech before B'Elanna stopped her. "You know what it's like to have everyone around you thinking something of you because of their preconceived notations based on your mother's race. You know how _lonely_ that is. You got lucky; your company commander believed in you. At least as far as acknowledging you as an individual person and not a curiosity. Our company commander is, well." She frowned, trying to decide what to say. "Our commander isn't Tom," she finally said, and left it at that. "Please, B'Elanna," she said, her voice almost pleading. "She needs someone other than me who believes in her. That's a lot of emotional burden. For _both_ of us. Give her a chance. If it works out, great. If not, maybe Admiral Yasinski can use another problem cadet."

B'Elanna sighed. Nothing Navi said wasn't true. Being alone at the Academy was hard, and was a burden, and B'Elanna knew that having her as a roommate had been a burden for Reyana, too. Having that complicated math that Yasinski had given her to work on had been one of the few things her plebe year that kept her mind off the fact that everybody around her knew that she was different. And now that she was teaching at the Academy and had a lab of her own that she ran, she was in a position to help those cadets who felt as lost as she had. "I think we can find something for her to do," she finally said. "If she's interested, tell her to come by."

Navi brightened. "Thank you!" she exclaimed.

"Don't thank me yet," B'Elanna said warningly. "I'm not an easy person to work for."

"I figured that out for myself, thanks," Navi said, still grinning as she got up to recycle her tray. B'Elanna sighed again as she rose to follow her sister.

Cadet Patiotis came by during office hours, as B'Elanna suspected he would. He was smart—you had to be, in order to handle Theoretical Propulsion—and would soon be a valuable addition to an engineering department on a ship somewhere in the Fleet, but he didn't quite have the patience for the intricacies of the material.

She had about half hour left of office hours when the door chimed, Cadet Shava on the viewer. "I think that's enough for today, Cadet," Torres said to Patiotis as she called for the door to open, holding up a finger to Shava to ask for a minute. "Read through those sections of the text I provided, and if you have any questions, you know where to find me tomorrow."

"Yes, sir," Patiotis said as he retrieved his PADD, then made a face. "You know what Admiral Chapman will say if he sees me heading to the CRC, though."

Torres chuckled. "Tell him if he has a problem with it, he can talk to me about it directly. I'll see you Friday. Or tomorrow, if you'd like." He nodded in acknowledgment and left the office.

"Cadet Shava," Torres said, gesturing to the now-empty chair. "Have a seat."

Shava's question from before was related to her question in class about magnetic constrictors, and Torres walked her through what that would look like when it came to shuttlecraft impulse drive diagnostics and repairs. The cadet was able to follow along, asking for clarification on some of the more complicated issues. "You seem to have an understanding of impulse drives," Torres commented.

Shava tilted her head slightly as she considered that. "I worked at a shipyard in the Antares sector for a few years," she finally said. "Mostly little stuff, such as inventory, but the mechanics would show me things when they had the time."

"A few _years_?" Torres echoed. Shava didn't look much older than Navi, but Torres knew better than most how difficult it was to judge the age of hybrids.

"I left home at 14," Shava said simply, and her tone made it clear that she was leaving it at that.

Before they could get back to impulse engines, there was a chime from the door, Izzy on the viewer. "Come in, Izzy," Torres said, and the door slid open to reveal her five-year-old. Accustomed to seeing the office empty when she arrived at 1545, she stopped abruptly at the sight of Cadet Shava.

"Hi," she said after a few beats. "I'm Izzy."

"Shava," the cadet replied.

"Where are you from?" Izzy asked, her head tilted.

"Izzy—" Torres began, but Shava answered.

"I was born on a planet called Largo V," Shava said. "And then I moved to Orion when I was two."

"I was born on Earth, but then we moved to Mars, and then we moved back to Earth," Izzy said cheerfully. "My mom said—"

"Izzy," Torres interrupted. "What time is flight practice today?"

"Sixteen thirty," Izzy replied automatically.

"What time is it now?"

Kids were wearing chronometers on their wrists these days, and Ainsley had given Izzy a wrist chronometer for Christmas. She consulted it. "Fifteen forty-six," she replied.

"And how long does it take to get to flight practice?"

"Ten minutes," Izzy replied promptly. "We have to leave by 1620 or we'll be late."

Torres nodded. "How much time do we have until we need to leave?"

Izzy paused for a second as she did the arithmetic. "Thirty-four minutes," she replied.

"Okay," Torres said with a nod. "Can you give Cadet Shava and me thirty minutes, and then we'll go to flight practice."

Izzy looked like she was about to nod, and then she said, her eyes wide and her voice slightly panicked. "My flight suit!" she said. "It's in your other office!"

The kids in the simulator division didn't need to wear flight suits for practice, but she knew that Izzy wouldn't accept that. Torres sighed. "We'll go to my other office in ten minutes," she amended. "Why don't you go to the mess hall and get yourself a snack and come back in ten minutes."

The promise of food made Izzy brighten, and she turned and all but ran toward the mess hall before her mother could change her mind. "We're working on the concept of time," Torres said as an explanation. She paused, then figured the best thing to do would be direct. "Navi told me that you're interested in doing some research," she said. "I'm not sure what we have that would be appropriate for a plebe at Pathfinder, but…" Her voice trailed off as she realized that they might have something. "It's not the most exciting work," she said warningly. " _Voyager_ has picked up a lot of alien technology over the years. We keep meaning to do an inventory of what everything is and what it does, or can do, but we haven't gotten around to it. It's a place to start."

"I can do inventories," Shava said slowly.

"I know you can," Torres replied. "The hard part is going to be getting to know Delta quadrant technology from an unknown number of races. If you're interested, I can show you around the lab sometime."

"I'm free now, sir," Shava said quickly. Torres blinked at the eagerness, but then nodded her assent and rose from her chair.

"Let's go get my daughter, then."


	78. 2377

Stardate 54016  
May 2377  
San Francisco, Earth

Cadet Yuiv was leading the discussion in Theoretical Propulsion, which meant that Lt. B'Elanna Torres, along with the other eleven cadets, were mainlining whatever caffeinated beverages they could get their hands on in hopes of keeping up.

To say that the young Andorian was enthusiastic about the material was an understatement. The fact that they were on the final block—singularity travel—the subject matter that Yuiv had spent the last year living and breathing, made her that much more enthusiastic. And when she was enthusiastic, she talked even faster than usual.

She was smart, a great engineering physicist and Torres was glad to have her on the Pathfinder team, but she was not a good teacher.

"The deployment of a subspace tensor matrix through the deflector array requires a magneton—" She stopped talking abruptly, her antennae sticking straight up before resting flat against her head, her eyes narrowing as they fixed down on her station on the table.

"Yuiv?" Torres asked after several seconds had gone by. Yuiv's eyes were still down on the table, darting quickly from one display to another and back again. She didn't say anything, her eyes still moving back and forth. From somewhere, her stylus had appeared, now out as she furiously began scratching out equations in longhand, the way she preferred. "Yuiv!"

When she still didn't get a reply from the cadet, Torres switched her table monitor to view what Yuiv was working on. It was the math she had been presenting, but she had circled one of the variables and was writing more equations in the margins, the numbers and letters appearing quickly in her small and imprecise handwriting, Andorian characters appearing along with the Standard, the way they did when Yuiv was working too fast to keep them straight. "Ghee!" Yuiv finally exclaimed. Torres recognized that one; it was an Andorian deity. Yuiv wasn't religious—she used it as an expletive, usually when she was upset.

And then Torres saw it. "Kahless," she muttered.

"We missed it," Yuiv said, her eyes finally rising from the table to meet Torres', her antennae again straight up from her head, a sign of barely-controlled panic. "The deflector array—"

"Yuiv," Torres said, trying to keep her voice as calming as possible, even though she felt like she was about to jump out of her skin. She wanted to run back to her lab and run the equations and the permutations and figure out how, after years of preparing for this, could they miss something so big, so close to deploying the singularity drive to get _Voyager_ home.

"This could cause a black hole that would destroy _sectors_ of space!" Yuiv exclaimed.

"Yuiv," Torres repeated, more firmly this time. "We still have twenty minutes of class. Please finish your lesson. We'll go back to Pathfinder after class and work on this."

"But—"

"Nothing is going to change in twenty minutes," Torres said. Yuiv frowned, but then slowly nodded. When she resumed her lesson, her voice was muted and distracted, none of the excitement she had had previously evident, clearly just trying to get through the lesson as quickly as possible so she could go back to the lab and try to fix their mistake.

Try to see if their mistake could be fixed, or if it would be the end of the singularity drive. They had already had to shelf the transwarp project; she didn't want to put this one away, too. Not when they were so close.

As soon as class was over, Torres commed Navi and told her that she was cancelling on lunch, cancelled her office hours, and then she and Yuiv ran from Scott Hall to the CRC. "Get started on the calculations," Torres instructed Yuiv as they strode into the lab. "I'll comm the _Curie_ and tell them to hold off on any experiments until we get this straightened out. And I'm going to see if Swanwick can come in lend us a hand." The now-lieutenant, jg had left Pathfinder when he had been promoted and was now running a lab at the Daystrom Institute, one of the labs that Yuiv was hoping to be rotating through, if she was approved to go straight into a PhD program after graduating in a year. It was rare that Starfleet allowed its officers, especially its engineers, to go straight into graduate school without a utilization tour first, but Yuiv was working on impressing the right people in the right places, and Daystrom was trying to see what strings could be pulled to get her assigned there to begin her graduate studies.

Cadet Shava had Founding of the Federation from 1300 to 1500, so Torres left a message with her asking her to come in when class was over as she waited for the comm to the _Curie_ to connect. If the issue was the deflector array, as Torres suspected, she needed Shava's eyes on it, as Shava had just finished reviewing all components of the array, where each had come from, how they were connected, and what each had the potential to do. * _Lt. Torres,*_ Captain Mancuso said pleasantly when the comm connected. * _I wasn't expecting to hear from you today.*_

"I wish it was good news, Captain," Torres replied. "Or even a social call. We discovered an error in the deflector settings. We're working on it now, but until we get it straightened out, you should put your experiments on hold."

* _Understood, Lieutenant,*_ he replied. * _Thanks for the heads up. Keep us in the loop, and don't hesitate if you need anything. Ensign Nu is doing great, by the way.*_

Torres smiled. "Of course she is," she replied. "Thanks, Captain. I'll let you know as soon as we know anything."

Lt. Swanwick came over, and while Torres considered herself to be pretty well-versed in everything that was going on in the propulsion section of Pathfinder, he and Yuiv immediately went more in depth into the physics than she could come up with if she tried, and it took everything she had just to keep up with the seemingly endless streams of equations and calculations they scrawled on the monitors, and she wasn't even sure what language they were speaking.

Shava came over as soon as her class was over, and while Swanwick and Yuiv continued with their calculations, Torres and Shava got started on the deflector. "We need to know everything about that deflector array," Torres said. "Every relay, every node, every piece of tech that is even remotely connected to the deflector."

They took that to the holodeck so they could actually see and touch everything they needed to, and in all of the excitement, Torres lost track of time until she got a comm. * _Mom, where are you?*_ Izzy demanded.

"Hey, Izzy," Torres said with a sigh. She can't believe she forgot to tell her five-year-old where to find her. "I'm sorry, I'm at Pathfinder. Come on over here."

* _Okay,*_ Izzy said cheerfully, and then closed the channel. A few minutes later, Izzy checked in, changed into her flight suit, watched videos from her previous flight practice, and then walked herself over to flight practice, and Torres took a few seconds to wonder when her daughter had become grown-up enough to do any of that.

And then she immediately got back to what they were doing and she again lost track of time, and the next thing she knew, Izzy was back at Pathfinder after flight practice. "I can't go home yet, Izzy," she said with a sigh. "I'm probably going to be here all night."

Izzy frowned, then shrugged. "Okay," she said, and turned toward the door.

"Wait," Torres said. "Where are you going?"

"Home," Izzy said, as if that was obvious, and Torres laughed. For as grown-up as Izzy seemed at times, she was still a five-year-old, and five-year-olds didn't go home alone.

"Nice try," Torres said. She checked her chronometer; Kajsa should be done with track practice. She didn't know how exactly she had found herself with an almost-17-year-old who pretty much lived with them, but for evenings such as this, it was pretty handy. She sent a text comm to Kajsa asking her to come by and pick up Izzy. "Kajsa's going to take you home. Do you want to wait for her here or in my office?"

Kajsa showed up twenty minutes later, still in her Tucker track suit over her practice uniform. She had started running track the year before to work on her sprints for Parrises Squares, and had surprised herself by being a very good hurdler. She had run the marathon in Chile with B'Elanna, Sydney, and Navi in December—Sydney had talked Navi into it as training for the Academy Marathon in the spring, and Navi talked Kajsa into it as preparation for her own Academy Marathon in a few years. Kajsa had hated it, and now was hoping to make it onto the Academy's track team, which would exempt her from the marathon. Coach Ulshanov was interested, but for as good as Kajsa was on the hurdles for a secondary school student, she wasn't quite at the collegiate level. He asked B'Elanna to show her a few things on the pole vault; he was always looking vaulters, and B'Elanna knew that if she could get Kajsa over three meters, she'd have a spot on the team. B'Elanna just needed to get her out there and show her how it was done. Assuming she still remembered how to vault.

And assuming she ever had the time.

"What time is bedtime?" B'Elanna asked Izzy before they left.

"Twenty hundred in Hawaii," Izzy recited. B'Elanna nodded.

"Let Kajsa get her homework done," B'Elanna instructed. "I love you, Izzy. I'll see you tomorrow."

"'Night, Mom," Izzy said, giving her mother a quick hug before turning to follow Kajsa out of the holodeck, leaving Torres and Shava to their deflector array.

It was around 2300 when Swanwick and Yuiv finished their calculations, and then the team focused on how to recalibrate the deflector array to meet the new outputs. They took a break around 0200; Andorians didn't do well without sleep, and Yuiv had gone from productive engineer to slow to almost delirious. Torres ordered both her and Shava back to the dorms to some sleep and both defied her and stayed in the holodeck.

There was an advantage to Barclay programming _Voyager'_ s entire ship instead of just engineering: crew quarters.

While they were sleeping, Torres went for a run, a hard, punishing run along the bay, enough to get her endorphins pumping and her brain to slow down enough to focus on the problem at hand.

They had figured out where they had erred and had rerun the calculations. All they had to do now was figure out how to reconfigure the deflector array. And then the navigational array, once they made the adjustments to the deflector. And determined that the deflector could create a singularity that would get them to the right place. R&D would have to do a new simulator program for Tom to practice on.

They had been within three weeks of getting _Voyager_ home. This would add, what? Four months? Five? A year? She didn't know yet, wouldn't know until they could figure out how to reconfigure the deflector array and figure out whether or not _Voyager_ be able to make the same reconfigurations.

So say it was six months. That was nothing. A drop in the bucket, really. It had been more than six years already. So what that they had another delay; they had had several already and survived them all. So what that B'Elanna would start teaching another term in the fall instead of moving onto the next phase in her career; she liked teaching. So what that Izzy would turn six without her father; she had celebrated five other birthdays without him already.

Kahless, she just wanted this over with.

She returned to Pathfinder, showered, changed, and tracked her cadets down to the mess hall of the holographic _Voyager_ , both sitting on the floor, their backs to a viewport. Gone were the disheveled cadets she had ordered to rest a few hours ago, their uniforms now refreshed and crisp, long silver hair and thick black hair both tied back in orderly buns, but the dark circles under both sets of eyes were enough to indicate that their naps hadn't been enough to restore them to full function. However, they were there and ready to work, and with only a few hours until their next meeting with _Voyager_ , Torres wasn't going to push them away. At least, until Shava had to leave for class at 1000.

They were talking about majors, Torres deduced as she headed for the replicator to get a cup of raktajino. If she ever spoke to Barclay again, she would have to thank him for living in the program so much that he programmed functional replicators into the mess hall. "I'm still torn between Systems and Propulsion," Shava was saying. "I like the Systems work I'm doing here, but I feel like Propulsion is where the serious engineering cadets go."

"I was a Propulsion major," Torres said as she took a seat in one of the chairs. "But almost all of my assignments have been in systems, and I got my master's in Comparative Systems. You're not going to limit your career either way." She took another drink of her raktajino and waved around vaguely. "There's a real mess hall just a few decks away," she said. "Don't spend too much time on holodecks, or you'll start to confuse it with reality. Just look at what happened to Barclay."

"Who?" Shava asked.

"He was the comms lead before I started here," Yuiv informed the junior cadet. "He's the reason why the _Voyager_ program is so detailed. He was living on the 'ship' in the holodeck, created a holographic crew and everything."

"Creepy," Shava commented. Silence fell over the three women as they all drank their beverages and nodded in agreement.

"How are your classes?" Yuiv asked Shava abruptly. "I liked some of those first-year classes. Founding of the Federation was my favorite class plebe year."

Shava shrugged a shoulder. "It's a little dull," she said, and out of the blue, Yuiv started chuckling.

"Can you even imagine?" She asked. "Do you think they had any idea that, 200 years after they formed the Federation, there would be a half-Klingon, half-human engineering professor, sitting with her Andorian and half-Orion, half-Romulan cadets on a holographic ship? Ghee. Where would we even _be_ 200 years ago?" She took another drink of her likely-over-sweetened coffee. "I'd be an engineer in the Imperial Andorian Guard," she said.

"I wouldn't exist," Torres commented.

"I would," Shava said. "Orions and Romulans had been hate fucking for centuries before humans figured out warp." She leaned her head against the viewport, her eyes unfocused into the room. "I'd be working for the Syndicate, probably 'sold' a few times already at this point. Not much has changed on that front in the last 200 years. Makes for a straightforward final essay, though. 'Describe the societal changes that occurred as a result of the founding of the Federation.' I chose Orions. Biggest change: more targets for the Syndicate."

Even though she hadn't said anything obviously personal, those were more words than Shava had said about her life since Torres had known her, and she knew better than to address it in any way. "I did Andoria. Obviously," Yuiv mused. "I should have chosen something simpler. How do you describe the societal changes that happen after a militaristic culture makes peace with their number one enemy and joins a coalition of planets focused on exploration?"

"Klingon," Torres offered. She had hated the assignment and definitely didn't want to do it on Klingons, but her mother's teachings had drilled enough Klingon history into her head and she didn't want to research a completely different culture. "Biggest change: new enemies for new wars." It was much more complicated than that; having a new enemy in the Federation had united the factions on Qo'noS and kept them from fighting each other.

She put down her mug and stood from her seat. "C'mon," she said, waiting for her cadets to make their way to their feet. "Back to Engineering to get on this deflector array."


	79. 2377

Stardate 54245  
August 2377  
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. B'Elanna Torres was preparing her materials for the first lecture for Comparative Systems as the students were filing in, when she caught a flash of a teal cadet uniform out of the corner of her eye. She looked up fully and sighed as the chime alerted to the start of the class. "Good morning," she said in her professor voice. "Welcome to Engineering 322: Comparative Systems. Over the course of the semester, we'll be covering the main technical systems of starships of multiple space-faring societies. This is not a course comparing organ systems of different races, in case there was any confusion, Cadet Torres." Navi looked up at her with a wide grin on her face.

"I'm in the right room, sir," she said, still grinning.

"This isn't a typical class for biomedical engineering majors," B'Elanna pointed out.

"Well, maybe if more biomedical engineers took Comparative Systems, you would have had someone who could have figured out how to install a biobed on a Jem'Hadar fighter. Sir," Navi said cheekily. Sitting next to her, Cadet Shava was trying her hardest not to smirk.

The material was far above Navi's head. There was a reason that most engineering majors took Comparative Systems as firsties; it required a solid understanding of each of the component systems that were covered, and thirds just didn't have that. It would have been beyond Shava's reach, too, if it hadn't been for the fact that Shava had been working in Pathfinder for the last five months and spent the summer holiday working with Seven of Nine on _Voyager_ on a review of the impact of Federation technology on Borg systems.

B'Elanna discovered three things about her sister in the first few weeks of Navi's third classman year. She found out that her sister was just as stubborn as she was and realized that Navi would succeed in anything she set her mind to. Even though the material was too advanced for her, Navi didn't back down and didn't drop the course when she could have without it impacting her grades. Instead, she buckled down, spending twice as much time as her classmates on the material, because she had to learn the basics of each system before she could figure out how to compare them. She sought out help when she needed it—usually from Shava, sometimes from senior classmates, often from B'Elanna—and was organized in such a way that left no doubt as to the fact that she had been raised by an engineer and was well on the way of becoming one herself.

And the third thing B'Elanna discovered was that Navi was still dating the terrible boyfriend she had started dating around January. She had met the guy, a second-classmate cadet Navi met through the Academy Symphony, and was overall not impressed, but figured that if Navi was old enough and mature enough to go the Academy, she was old enough and mature enough to decide who to date without meddling from her half-sister. And she would have been okay leaving it at that, if it wasn't for the fact that she was subjected to Shava's complaints about Navi's relationship whenever they worked together. She preferred not to discuss anything personal with anyone while working, but none of her attempts to redirect Shava had succeeded. "He's awful," Shava railed as they worked on disassembling the holographic projection of _Voyager's_ impulse manifolds. "Can't you tell her to break up with him?"

Torres snorted. "You're not the first to ask," she commented. Shava looked up quizzically. "John," Torres said simply, which didn't help Shava's confusion. "Our father," she explained. "He's not a fan, either."

"That's because _Brad_ is dumber than a box of rocks," Shava said, somehow making the name sound like a curse. "Not that there aren't smart security officers out there, but let's just say it's good for him that he's halfway decent with a phaser, because there is no other function he'll be able to perform on a ship." Torres had to fight to keep the smirk from her face. "My mother would have loved him."

"Why's that?" This might have been the first time Shava had directly mentioned either parent in Torres' presence.

"Because he's an easy mark," Shava said simply. "Give a little smile, dance a little dance," she briefly held one arm over her head in a half-second, half-demonstration of an Orion slave girl dance, "and swoop in and take his ship and all his possessions. If it weren't for the _Brad's_ of the quadrant, the Orion Syndicate would have gone out of business centuries ago."

The mental image amused Torres. "What does Navi think of you assessing her boyfriend for the Syndicate?"

"She said if I want to sleep with him, I have to go about it honestly. No pheromones." Torres chuckled at Navi's sarcastic response, and Shava made a face. "As if I would. The last thing I need is a _Brad_."

"The last thing I need is to hear anything else about Brad," Torres replied. "Unless this is your way of telling me that you now know everything there is to know about Borg modifications of Intrepid-class impulse manifolds?" Shava gave her an apologetic smile and returned to the task at hand.

Since Comparative Systems was in the class period before lunch, the two Torreses continued their Wednesday lunches. It wasn't uncommon for said lunches to turn into tutoring sessions, but it also wasn't uncommon for Navi to declare that she needed a break from engineering for a few minutes and talk about things that were completely inconsequential. "I'm going to try to come to Izzy's flight competition this weekend," Navi said out of the blue. B'Elanna frowned at her.

"I thought you were usually busy on Saturdays," she observed, and Navi shrugged a shoulder.

"I've been going to Brad's water polo games," she said, "but that's getting boring."

"'That' being the water polo games, or Brad?" B'Elanna asked, and Navi chuckled.

"Brad has always been boring," she said. "It's not like I'm dating him for the intellectual stimulation." B'Elanna snorted, and Navi put on a wicked grin. "I mean, come on. He's on the water polo team and spends most of his time working out. He has the most objectively perfect body."

"The sex can't be that good." She wondered how much enjoyment a person who didn't like to be touched could get out of sex, but then figured that casual touch and intimate touch were probably different enough that they couldn't be compared. She also had no frame of reference as to what sex was like as a telepath and really didn't feel like getting into such a discussion with her cadet of a half-sister.

"The sex is that good," Navi countered, then sighed. "I know, I'm going to have to break up with him. Probably soon. But haven't you ever dated the completely wrong guy for completely physical reasons?"

That described all of B'Elanna's secondary school experience, but instead of saying that, she joked, "And then I married him."

Navi chuckled, probably because she knew that wasn't true. "Well, I certainly can't marry Brad," she said. "For one, he would drive me insane with how completely unintelligent he is. And I really can't marry any human, because then our kids wouldn't have hybrid status. They'd be three-quarters human and just tiny slivers of anything interesting."

"You really shouldn't choose your husband based on your non-existent children's hybrid status," B'Elanna observed. "And I thought you didn't want kids?"

"Betazoids are out," Navi mused as if B'Elanna hadn't said anything. "I can't deal with that meek men nonsense. And Vulcans…"

"You would be the most frustrating spouse to a Vulcan," B'Elanna commented.

"Exactly," Navi sighed. "And they're boring. The summer I spent on Vulcan was excruciating. You need to do things that aren't logical every once in a while, you know?" She sighed again and poked at her food with her fork. "I don't think I'm going to get married," she commented. "I don't know if that's me. Maybe I'll just stay single and have great sex for the rest of my life."

"There's a lot of bad sex between the bouts of great sex," B'Elanna commented. Navi smirked slightly.

"Do you miss it?" she asked abruptly. "Not Tom. I know you miss _him_ , but do you miss the relationship stuff? And the sex?"

"I am most certainly not discussing my sex life in the middle of the Scott Hall mess," B'Elanna replied.

But yes, she definitely missed the relationship stuff, and most certainly missed the sex.

Two more months. If this worked this time, she had two more months.

If.


	80. 2377

Stardate 54293  
August 2377  
Seattle, Earth

Izzy was bouncing on her toes, a little bundle of energy in a flight suit, her eyes fixed on the monitors in front of her. B'Elanna didn't know why she was so focused on watching her competitors fly; she was leaps and bounds ahead of them in flight skills, and that wasn't a warped impression from a proud mother. She was married to a test pilot, after all. She had picked up a thing or two about flying since she met Tom.

"You're starting to make me nervous, Izz," Navi commented from her position next to B'Elanna. Izzy turned to give her a look before turning right back to the monitors, apparently not deeming that comment worthy of a response. "Wow," Navi murmured. "Tough crowd."

"Izzy takes flight competitions very seriously," B'Elanna commented. Navi raised an eyebrow.

"Your kid take something seriously?" she asked sarcastically. "Who would have seen that coming?"

"He's going to hit the asteroid," Izzy said matter-of-factly, and sure enough, a second later, the simulated shuttle glanced off the asteroid on the screen, the score counter in the corner deducting points for the impact. "He's too slow." B'Elanna knew that Izzy wasn't speaking to them; her running commentary of other people's flights was for her own edification, the way Tom would talk to himself when he was focused on something. "I don't think he's going to be able to finish the course in time."

"So how does this work, Izz?" Navi asked. Izzy turned back to her and frowned slightly, and then sighed, as if she was dealing with a slow and burdensome child.

"Five- and six-year-olds only have one course," Izzy explained. "It's a timed obstacle course. The obstacles are the same for everyone, but they come randomly, so my course will look different than Raj's. There's two asteroids, an ion storm, three turns, another shuttle—"

"What happens if you hit any of the obstacles? Or miss a turn?" Navi asked, and Izzy sighed heavily again at the interruption.

"If you hit any of them hard enough to crash, the course ends," she said. "If you hit them just a little, you get a penalty and lose points. If you don't finish in 20 minutes, you don't get any points. I can do it in less than 12," she boasted, then frowned. "I have to do it in 11 minutes, 43 seconds without penalties if I'm going to break the record. Or faster if I get any penalties."

* _Isela Paris,*_ the overhead announcer boomed. * _Fifteen minutes until start. Please proceed to Simulator 5 for the 5 to 6 year old division. Isela Paris. Fifteen minutes until start.*_

"Ready, Izzy?" B'Elanna didn't know where Izzy's coach had appeared from—probably one of the other simulators—but there he was, ready to give last minute instructions as he walked her to the simulator.

"Good luck, Izzy," Navi called out. Izzy gave her an exasperated look.

"Fly true," B'Elanna said quickly, before Izzy could dwell on Navi's words. After she was out of earshot down the corridor, she explained to Navi, "It's bad luck to wish them good luck. Or something."

"I had no idea pilots were so superstitious," Navi commented, and it was B'Elanna's turn to give her an exasperated look.

"Really?" She asked. "After how many years of Tom giving you flying lessons?"

"Good point," Navi conceded. "So Izzy's going for the record?"

"She's _been_ going for the record. She almost had it last month, but got too excited and didn't correct for the last asteroid fast enough and ended up with a penalty." Izzy had been angry, then inconsolable, and then determined, watching the video from her last competition every night before going to bed, working on her reaction time drills to the point of distraction at school.

They watched Izzy's competitor—Raj Singh, another child of Starfleet officers, as most of the kids in the 5-6 year-old category were—as he barely finished the course before the end of the 20 minute mark, and then the monitor for the Simulator 5 went dark as it reset for Izzy's route while she performed the safety checks on the simulated shuttle. They never had simulated deficiencies for the youngest age group, but the checks were still required, to get them in the habit of doing it for when they started flying in real shuttles when they were 10.

And then the screen went active, and as soon as the course started, Izzy was off without missing a beat, expertly handling the first turn at speeds that made B'Elanna wince, even though she knew it was just a simulation. "Gods," Navi murmured.

"Mm-hmm," B'Elanna murmured in response, her eyes not leaving the monitor.

"She really knows what she's doing," Navi continued. "And her reaction times! I have got to get her in the lab."

"No studying my daughter."

"Too late for that, really." They lapsed into silence as they watched the monitor. "She's ahead of the record pace. What record is this she's trying to break?"

"Tom's record, from when he was her age," B'Elanna replied. Navi chuckled.

"No paternity test needed," she joked as Izzy expertly flew around an asteroid, and then 11 minutes and 38 seconds after she started, she crossed the finish line, and they watched on the monitor as the display changed from _Course Record, ages 5-6: T. Paris (2351) 11:44.02_ to _I. Paris (2377) 11:38.42._

They threw a party on the beach to celebrate Izzy's new record, complete with ice cream cake, at the request of the new record holder. Navi, now in her thirds year and therefore granted weekend liberty, was able to join them, and the trio of Navi, Ainsley, and Kajsa had a rare afternoon together before Navi had to return to the dorms at curfew and Kajsa would be spending Sunday in the cartography department at Pathfinder, and for just a few hours, they got to act like the teenagers they were instead of the adults Navi and Kajsa were desperately trying to become and Ainsley was just as desperately trying to avoid becoming.

The next Thursday was Tom's week after the call between Pathfinder and _Voyager_. B'Elanna brought Izzy in, and for the full five minutes, Izzy regaled him with a turn-by-turn recitation of her competition, and Tom couldn't look more proud.

* * *

Lt. Torres was in the process of explaining Romulan shield generators when cadets began scrambling to their feet. She stopped in mid-sentence, frowning, and then realized what must have been happening and turned to the door. "As you were," Admiral Owen Paris said to the class, and they hesitantly returned to their seats.

"Admiral," she greeted Owen. "If you don't mind, I still have 15 minutes left in class."

"I think you'll have to finish up on Monday," Owen replied. He stepped into the room, Izzy close at his heels. B'Elanna opened her mouth to ask what was going on, and then she noticed people filing into the room from the rear door as well: Admiral Yasinski, Commander Ao, Nicki, T'Pana, Commander Harkins. She turned back to Owen and noticed the small box in his hand, and it all clicked.

"Sir," she said with a sigh. "We talked about this." Her name had appeared on the promotion list for August, but with getting _Voyager_ home seeming eminent, she decided that she was going to hold off on actually pinning the rank until after Tom got home. It was bad enough that he didn't wear the rank he had earned two years before; she most certainly wasn't going to parade around in hers.

"And I overruled you," Owen pointed out with a smile. He turned to the class and spoke in his admiral voice. "I first met Lt. Torres when she took my Survival Strategies course her second classman year," he began. "On the first day, I assigned her an engineering problem, and she immediately put together a team to tackle the problem. I tried to tell her that it was her responsibility, but she replied that nothing in Starfleet is a one-person job, and that it was my son who taught her that."

Torres smirked at the memory as she crossed her arms and leaned against the back wall. "I've always had an issue with authority figures named Paris," she said dryly, and he nodded and chuckled in agreement.

"B'Elanna worked harder than I had ever seen a cadet work in that class," Owen continued. "She woke up early to run—no rest for award-winning decathletes—did all of the course work, and then stayed up to work through problems in warp mechanics. She was impossible to fatigue, and still is. Working full time at Pathfinder, teaching classes here at the Academy, mentoring cadets, raising my granddaughter, and still running marathons." He looked over at her and smiled. "I may not have chosen her to my daughter-in-law—my son came up with that one all on his own—but I did choose her to run the propulsion engineering section of Pathfinder, because I knew that she wouldn't stop until the job was done.

"Every once in a while, we get the opportunity to reward officers for meeting and exceeding our expectations, by giving them even greater responsibilities and expectations," he continued. "We found out a few weeks ago that we would get that privilege this month. Cadet Torres," he said, turning to Navi. "Publish the orders."

There was a split second of a wicked grin on Navi's face before she sprang to her feet, her PADD in hand. "Attention to orders!" she called out, and as one, the cadets came to their feet as well, snapping to positions of attention. B'Elanna sighed internally, but followed suit, straightening to attention. "The President of the Federation, acting upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Starfleet, has placed special trust and confidence in the patriotism, integrity, and abilities of Lt. B'Elanna Torres. In view of these special qualities, and her demonstrated potential to serve in the higher grade, Lt. Torres is promoted to the grade of Lieutenant Commander, Federation Starfleet, effective Stardate 54308.18, by the order of President Min Zife."

"Izzy," Owen said, handing the small box to his granddaughter, who took it with the solemnity that the moment required. B'Elanna knelt down so Izzy could reach her collar and pin the black pip next to the two gold ones that were already there.

"Thank you, Izzy," B'Elanna said, kissing her daughter on the top of her head before she straightened and faced the class. "Last time I did this, they told me I had to make a speech, but you guys listen to me talk for an hour and a half three times a week anyway, so I think we could forego that this time around."

"We have cake!" Izzy offered.

"Let's do that instead," B'Elanna replied.

And for the last ten minutes of Comparison Systems, Lt. Commander B'Elanna Torres decided to forego Romulan shield generators in favor of sharing cake with her students.


	81. 2377

Stardate 54481  
November 2377  
Hawaii, Earth

Lt. Tom Paris woke up and experienced a split second of panic at his unfamiliar surroundings before it came back to him. He was in Hawaii, in B'Elanna's—their?—apartment, the light streaming in from behind the thin curtains, which were swaying slightly with the ocean breeze, the sound of waves and birds coming in through the open window.

And he was alone.

He had only lived with his wife for eight months before he left on _Voyager_ , and in that time, he could count on one hand the number of times B'Elanna woke up before he did. If he added the first summer they were dating and the random nights they got to spend together when she was a cadet and he was living on Mars, he still wouldn't use both hands.

And yet, here they were, on the first morning they had together since _Voyager_ 's return, and her side of the bed was decidedly cold.

He finally got up, grabbing his robe from where they had unceremoniously dumped his duffel the night before, and made his way out of the bedroom. He soon found his wife, sitting out on the balcony—lanai, she had called it the night before—in her running clothes, her feet up on an ottoman, a mug of what had to be raktajino in her hand and his sister sitting across from her, similarly attired.

Facing the way they were, it was Sydney who saw him first. "Good morning, sleeping beauty," she said with a smirk. "I was wondering if you were going to be gracing us with your presence any time soon."

"What time is it?" he asked, wondering how he could have slept so late.

"It's only zero-eight," B'Elanna said, rolling her eyes at Sydney. She turned her head up to him and he bent down to give her a kiss. She tasted like raktajino; he was relieved to see that, of everything that had changed since he left, her coffee preference had not. "I didn't want to wake you."

"How long have you been up?"

"A few hours," she said. "We went for a run," she explained needlessly.

"When did you become a morning person?" he asked incredulously. B'Elanna chuckled.

"2371?" she guessed, then shrugged. "Not much of a choice when you have an infant who doesn't sleep. And then when I was a company commander, I had to be at formation at 0630. Moving to Hawaii didn't help," she continued. "In retrospect, I should have chosen somewhere further east than San Francisco instead of west. Mexico or Peru or Chile or somewhere."

He ducked back inside to replicate a mug of coffee for himself before joining them on the third chair on the lanai. "I like it here," he offered.

"So do I," B'Elanna said with a sigh, looking out at the water.

"When are you guys moving back to Mars?" Sydney asked. Tom was surprised at the question; he didn't realize that his family knew that they had been talking about where they wanted to go and what they wanted to, but B'Elanna didn't seem fazed.

"We're still figuring that out," she replied. "I have to finish out this semester at a minimum. That gives us six weeks to decide what our next step is."

"Kajsa will be sad to see you go," Sydney said with a chuckle. "She's not going to be happy moving back with the grandparents."

"She doesn't live here," B'Elanna protested, and Sydney laughed again.

"You moved into a bigger apartment so she could have her own room," she pointed out. "And you even asked her if she would mind staying with Mom and Dad for the next few days. And now that Steph is back here on Earth, I have to listen to her complain about how unfair it is that Kajsa gets to live with B'Elanna and Izzy and she has to stay in San Francisco."

"She goes to school in New York," B'Elanna said, rolling her eyes. "Living in Hawaii would be a nightmare."

"I don't think you can reason with a 14-year-old," Sydney pointed out. She took a drink of her coffee before turning to Tom. "What're your plans today?"

"I don't know," he said honestly. Turning to his wife, he asked, "What are our plans today?"

"You have the group promotion ceremony at 1300, San Francisco time." That would be two hours from now. "Other than that, no plans," she said. "I'm not going to the office today and I'm not due back at the Academy until Monday."

"You're taking the day off work?" Sydney asked incredulously, and B'Elanna fixed her with a look.

"I have gone into the office every day for the last three months," she said. "I've earned a few days off."

"Well, sure," Sydney agreed. "I just never thought you'd take them." She raised her coffee mug to her lips to finish the last of the beverage as she stood, her hips popping as she did so. "I'm too old for this," she complained. "I'll see you guys at the promotion ceremony. Don't be late, _Commanders_ ," she said.

Tom waited until he heard the door close behind his sister before he turned back to his wife. "Where's Izzy?" he asked.

She seemed amused at the question. "She's at school," she said. "It's Thursday and she's been out for a week."

"So we have the place to ourselves," he said, eyebrows raised. She looked over at him and laughed.

"Got something in mind, Flyboy?" she teased. He did, actually, and apparently, she had the same thing in mind.

He didn't want to leave that bed, but knew that skipping officially becoming a lieutenant commander was probably not the best to start out officially being a lieutenant commander, even if, in the eyes of Starfleet, he had held the rank for two years already. He groaned as he got up, and groaned again as he realized he needed to replicate a new uniform—Starfleet had made it abundantly clear that now that they were back in Federation space, it was time for them to stop acting like they were lost on the other side of the galaxy, to start with wearing the proper uniform. He was sure the only reason they hadn't insisted on it as soon as contact had been made was that they couldn't think of a good reason to require Captain Janeway to use up the energy necessary to replicate over 150 sets of uniforms when nobody they made contact with would know the difference.

"It's all very… gray," he commented as he secured the new uniform top over his red turtleneck.

"Hmm?" B'Elanna murmured distractedly, getting into her own uniform.

"The uniforms," he said, gesturing at his torso vaguely. "Everything's monochromatic. Gray duty uniform, white and gray dress uniform. Starfleet always seemed so colorful when I was a kid. The same three primary colors, sure, but you can't deny that it was all very bright."

"I never realized I married such a fashion critic," B'Elanna teased.

"I'm full of surprises," he shot back.

Aside from the graduation ceremony at Starfleet Academy, Paris had never seen almost 100 people get promoted at once, and was honestly a little impressed at how they pulled it off, especially the day after they returned to Earth. They were just promoting members of the 'true Starfleet' crew that day; Headquarters hadn't made a decision yet about what to do about the provisional ranks Captain Janeway had given the former Maquis crewmembers, and honestly, that alone made Paris wonder how many of them wanted to keep any of their status or rank with Starfleet, an organization that, despite having more than three years to figure it out, was still having a hard time acknowledging how important they had been in their collective survival over the years.

Captain Janeway had done as good of a job as she could keeping the ranks fair. They obviously couldn't go off time in service, as they would have if they were still in the Alpha quadrant. There were no other ships to transfer people to, and if their journey had really taken the anticipated 70 years, they would have arrived home a ship full of admirals. Instead, she had rounded out the positions to the appropriate ranks. Joe had become a full lieutenant, as a chief engineer shouldn't be less than that, even on a smaller ship. Sue had been promoted to lieutenant, jg as one of his deputies, and Seska, for that brief second of time that she had been a member of their crew, had been commissioned as lieutenant, jg to serve as his other deputy. A few years in, she had promoted Tuvok to lieutenant commander, a move she probably should have made sooner. She had offered to give the EMH rank—lieutenant commander, with the opportunity to promote to commander—as well as Kes—ensign, when she started out the nurse—and Seven—lieutenant, jg—but they had declined, Kes and Seven both preferring to stay out of the rank structure and remaining as civilian crewmembers, and the Doctor not seeing the point, as doctors didn't serve in command positions.

Well, before he had fashioned himself as the ECH, of course.

But there was only so far the captain could go with promotions, which left a lot of people, such as Harry and Sam, still serving as ensigns, because that's what the manning roster called for. Which brought them to today, where everyone who had started the mission as a Starfleet officer would be brought up in rank to where they should be. And where Tom Paris would have to participate in yet another ceremony, something he really didn't enjoy.

Fortunately, Captain Janeway had an idea of all that they would be going through in the coming weeks, all of the ceremonies and speeches and hearings and inquests, and kept her remarks brief, general words about how proud she was of her crew and how admirably all had served together, putting their differences aside for their common goal of getting home, a not-so-subtle dig at Starfleet Headquarters for their failure to recognize her former-Maquis crewmembers.

The adjuvant called them to order, and then Captain Janeway came through with the pips. "Lieutenant Commander Thomas Eugene Paris," the adjuvant announced. Tom hadn't realized he would be the most senior of the promotees, and then couldn't understand why he didn't realize it; he had been the fourth most senior officer on the ship since the dust had settled from the Caretaker's mess, and with Tuvok having been promoted a few years before and Chakotay still not officially addressed, there had been no one above him that day. "Lieutenant Commander Joseph Mitchell Carey," the adjuvant continued. "Lieutenant Susan Christine Nicoletti." As the adjuvant continued with the names, Captain Janeway continued with the pips, and Paris's muscles began to ache from standing at attention for so long. He wished he could have had a ceremony like B'Elanna's: small, no fuss, pinned by Izzy, ending in cake.

When it was finally over and everyone had the proper rank on their collars, Tom accepted a glass of champagne and a kiss from B'Elanna. "Let's not do it like this next time," he commented.

"How about this: I won't make you get promoted in a giant ceremony if you can keep your father from surprising me at work with a promotion party."

"Deal," he agreed, and they sealed the deal with a kiss. "So," he said after taking a sip of the champagne. "What're we going to do with the rest of your time off until Monday?"


	82. 2377

Stardate 54456  
October 2377  
San Francisco, Earth

"And just a reminder," Lt. Commander B'Elanna Torres concluded as she finished her lesson on Klingon cloaking devices. "After six and a half years, it's time to bring _Voyager_ back home." The words were met with cheering from the cadets; even though Torres didn't discuss _Voyager_ in class, they all knew about Pathfinder and the seemingly-endless quest to find a way to bring the lost ship back. Many of them had been plebes when Pathfinder first made contact and had piled into the lecture hall for Advanced Communications Networking in hopes of hearing Torres tell how they had managed to find the ship.

She held up her hands to quiet them. "I'm leaving tonight toward the intercept point. If all goes well, I'll be back in about two weeks. If not, maybe sooner, maybe not at all. In the meantime, Dr. Hospod will be filling in for me. He's the head of Comparative Systems Engineering at Starfleet Engineering and was my technical advisor for my master's, so you're in good hands. Be thinking about your final projects. Proposals will be due shortly after I return, but I'll continue to accept them and review them as I'm able until then. If you need a refresher on the project requirements, it's pretty well outlined in the syllabus. Class dismissed." As the cadets filed out of the lecture hall, she noticed a number of them gathered around Shava, likely hoping to get more information about the singularity drive or details about the flight. She wouldn't say that her junior cadet had become a social butterfly by any means, but she did seem less hostile and more comfortable in her place in the Corps of Cadets than she had been at the start of Engineering 2 the previous semester.

There wasn't much to do at Pathfinder; everything that needed to be done had been done already. The experiments had been run, the data analyzed, new experiments designed, run, and analyzed, and over and over more times than she could count. But still Torres stood there in her now-empty lab, wondering if this was finally going to be it, if this was going to be one that got _Voyager_ home. "I don't think I've ever seen this place empty." She turned to see Lt. Serin, her deputy, glancing around the space. "I guess this means it's time for you to _go home_."

She smiled slightly, familiar with the encouragement from her deputy to leave work every once in a while. "I'm going, I'm going," she insisted. He rolled his eyes but pretended to accept that.

"You ready?"

"A little nervous," she admitted. She knew their part was done; it was up to Joe Carey to make the final modifications to the engines and deflector array and up to Tom to fly them home, but that knowledge didn't help the nerves.

"Don't worry," Serin said in soothing tones. "I won't let the cadets throw any parties in the lab while the parents are out."

She finally smiled at that as she turned to leave the lab. "I expect this place to be spotless when I return," she teased.

"In order to return, you need to actually leave," he shot back. "I'll see you in a few weeks, Torres."

"And you'll hear from me sooner," she said warningly as she allowed him to herd her toward the door. "I don't know what's going to come up between now and Thursday, and I need you here ready to handle anything."

"You can count on me."

She knew she could; he had been her deputy since Pathfinder had expanded from a couple of people in a random astrometrics lab to the three teams of engineers, another of comms, and the busiest collection of astrophysicists and cartographers in Starfleet that it was today. "Thanks, Serin," she said. "Have a good night."

"You too, Torres."

She went straight from Pathfinder to the Paris house, where everyone else—Owen and Alicia, Izzy, Nicki and the rest of the Sanders family, and the two Wyland girls currently on Earth—were already gathered. "Let me guess," Nicki said as she handed B'Elanna a glass of wine, not even giving the engineer an opportunity to drop her duffel by the door. "You stopped by the lab first."

"I just had a few last things to check," B'Elanna said defensively. Nicki rolled her eyes.

"And you'll check them three more times from the _Mackay_ before _Voyager_ even begins the trip," she said. "Gods. After all this time, I can't believe it's finally here. The next time I see you after tonight, you'll have Tom with you."

"Here's hoping," B'Elanna replied as she took a sip of her wine.

"Mom!" Izzy shouted at her as she descended the stairs. "I'm going with you and Grandpa!"

"Well, that's certainly news to me," B'Elanna replied. "And what makes you think that?"

"I'm going to see Dad!" Izzy replied excitedly.

"Yes," B'Elanna said slowly. "You'll see him when we get back, but until then, you're staying here with Grandma and Kajsa and Stephanie."

"No," Izzy said stubbornly. She had literally put her foot down, planted it hard onto the floor, her arms crossed over her chest and her chin lifted defiantly. "Dad said I'm going to see him _soon_ , and that means I'm going with you!"

"Soon is a relative term, Izzy," B'Elanna replied. "You'll see him in a couple of weeks."

"No!"

"Yes."

"No!" she repeated, then changed tactics and asked, "Why not?"

"Why can't you go?" B'Elanna asked. "Because it's a Starfleet ship, and you're not in Starfleet."

" _Mom_."

"It was kinda a week argument," Nicki chimed in. "I lived on a Starfleet ship _long_ before I was in Starfleet."

B'Elanna gave her sister-in-law a warning glance, which Nicki intentionally missed, before she turned back to Izzy and sighed. "You have school," she said. "And it's a few days in the runabout to get to the rendezvous point. Runabouts aren't very big and we're going to be tripping over each other. And they're really boring to be in. And it's too dangerous."

"It's not too dangerous," Izzy scoffed. "I know how to fly."

B'Elanna didn't see what the two statements had to do with each other, but if there was one thing she had learned from being the mother of a six-year-old, it was that that happened quite frequently. "You fly simulators," she pointed out, then sighed. That was hardly the point. "Grandpa and I have a lot of work to do while we're on the _Mackay_ and then when we're on _Voyager_. We can't be entertaining you."

"I can entertain myself."

For twenty minutes, sure, but B'Elanna doubted that would be true of the two-day trip to the waiting point, nor the wait for _Voyager_ to travel through the singularity, the twelve hour flight to the rendezvous point, or the several days B'Elanna would be running diagnostics on _Voyager_ 's engines before they could begin the return trip to Earth. "Izzy, you're staying here, and that's final."

"I don't see why she can't go." B'Elanna whipped around in surprise at the sound of Owen's voice, then glared at her father-in-law.

"You're not helping," she snapped.

"It's not going to be the most exciting trip in the world, but if she really has her heart set on it, I don't see why not," Owen continued with a shrug.

"She has school," B'Elanna pointed out.

"And she could do her school work on the _Mackay_ ," Owen argued.

"We don't know what will happen if something goes wrong," she said. "I don't want her to be anywhere near the exit point of the singularity if this fails."

"We'll be over a light year away," Owen reminded her, and she herself had confirmed Swanwick's and Yuiv's calculations that determined that would be a safe distance away.

"We're going to be busy," she pointed out. "There are a lot of last-minute things that need to be ironed out before the flight, and then I'm going to be in engineering and you're going to be working with Captain Janeway."

"And while we're stopped, there's not going to be much for the chief helmsman to do," Owen said. She flushed at the fact that she had completely forgotten that at the end of this, Izzy would have two parents capable of keeping an eye on her. "It'll be good for Tom and Izzy to have some time alone together." He turned to his youngest granddaughter. "Go get your duffel, Izzy. We're leaving right after dinner. Admiral's orders."

"Yay!" she exclaimed, rushing forward to wrap her arms around her grandfather before she turned and ran back up the stairs. "Thank you, Grandpa!" she called out over her shoulder as she ran.

"Seriously?" B'Elanna demanded. "She's _my_ daughter! Don't you think this should be _my_ decision?"

"It's my mission," he replied. "That means I get to choose my team."

"Sure, out of eligible Starfleet officers," she said. "You don't get to draft six-year-olds into the Fleet just to suit your purposes! I'm not comfortable with this, Owen."

"Well, you've got about an hour to get more comfortable with it," he replied. "Because it's happening."

She knew better than to waste her time or her breath arguing with him; if there was one thing she had learned from over a decade of dealing with various members of the Paris family, it was that their stubbornness knew no bounds. Not that Izzy hadn't inherited a healthy dose of that from her side of the family as well, of course. Instead, she released a long string of Klingon curses in his general direction, and was pleased to find that doing so was as satisfying as she remembered.

When Izzy's excitement at being included kept her awake until well after midnight on the first night, B'Elanna wasn't sure if she was going to kill her daughter or her father-in-law first, but she had calmed down significantly by a few hours after breakfast on their first full day in space, when it set in that time in a runabout really was significantly more boring than the time she had spent on various starships on their trips to Qo'noS, or even on the Bird of Prey that had taken them from DS9 to Qo'noS a year and a half before. But she had sat in the back and done her homework with minimal complaints, taking a few breaks to work on foot drills with the practice soccer ball that Ainsley had insisted Izzy bring with her, the one that gave immediate feedback on how well she was executing the prescribed drills.

By Thursday morning, B'Elanna had to admit—to herself only; she didn't want to deal with that 'I told you so' look on Owen's face—that having Izzy along was far from the chore she thought it would be. It had been too long since she had spent much time with Izzy when both were awake and neither was distracted, between her work at Pathfinder and teaching at the Academy and Izzy's schedule of school, soccer, and flight practices and how busy that kept her, and it was nice to have that reminder that she had, against all odds, been raising a well-adjusted, happy, and interesting child.

They had settled into the location where they would wait for _Voyager_ to do the jump, and then B'Elanna changed into her gym clothes for an hour of _mok'bara_ before connecting with Pathfinder for the most recent projections of the next morning's flights while Owen and Izzy occupied themselves with dinner in the back. * _I can get you connected to_ Voyager _to go over the data with Lt. Carey, if that would be helpful,*_ Lt. Serin said. * _Sali said she can get a window between you and_ Voyager _in fifteen minutes, but she's not sure until the comm connects how long it'll be open.*_

"Anything is better than nothing," B'Elanna replied. "Let's do it."

Fifteen minutes later, they got their window, and after the crewman who had been manning astrometrics realized what was going on and had summoned Joe Carey, B'Elanna was discussing the projections for the next morning's flight and what that would mean for the deflector settings with the chief engineer. "How's Tom?" she asked as they finished up.

* _Killing himself running these simulations,*_ Joe replied. * _I don't know when he last left the holodeck.*_

"Well, that's nothing new," she joked. He smiled slightly in reply, but he looked pretty close to the tipping point of exhaustion himself.

* _We still have a few minutes left of comm time,*_ he said. * _Do you want me to go get him?*_

Part of her didn't want to disturb him from the simulator, but the rest of her knew that if this didn't go well and _Voyager_ was destroyed, she would never forgive herself for giving up one last opportunity to tell him that she loved him. "Thanks, Joe," she said. He nodded and turned toward the door, then hesitated and turned back.

* _On the very slight off-chance I don't get to say this to you tomorrow, thank you, B'Elanna, for everything you've done for us. And for being a friend to Sarah and the boys. Getting to see them every other week… Well, that's a lot more than I thought I could ever ask for just a few years ago.*_

She nodded slightly. "Thanks for taking care of Tom," she replied. He gave a nod, then ducked out of the astrometrics lab.

She returned her attention to her console, not looking up again until she heard the door to _Voyager_ 's astrometrics lab sliding open again. "Joe said you've been running simulations non-stop," she greeted her husband. "You look like it."

His smile was tired, but was still all Tom. * _I've used up almost all my replicator rations on raktajino,*_ he said, and she doubted he was joking.

"How have the simulations been going?" she asked.

 _*I'm at about 90%,*_ he said. Her eyes widened, impressed. _*If you can get Joe a good, wide singularity, I'd feel a lot better about the whole thing.*_

"Ninety is a lot higher than any of the test pilots at R&D could get," she pointed out. "We're going to monitor your progress from about a light year away. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" she said. She knew her voice was more forceful than the sentence required, but couldn't help it. This had to work.

 _*That's my goal,*_ he replied.

"That's good," she said. She took a deep breath, remembering those words she had told him before big flights, back when they were newlyweds in a small apartment on Mars and had no idea what the universe was going to throw at them. "Don't you dare die on me. I'm only getting married once, Flyboy."

She saw him swallow a few times, and when he spoke again, she heard regret in his voice. _*Don't worry. I'm not planning on it.*_

"That's good," she said, and she heard in her own voice the same heaviness she heard in his. "Because if you did, I'd have to go down to the gates of _Gre'thor_ myself to kill you again."

_*It's going to work, B'Elanna. It has to.*_

"I love you, Tom," she said, and thinking of the six-year-old in the back, probably eating dinner while her grandfather quizzed her on her multiplication tables, added, "and it's about time for you to start pulling your weight on this whole parenting thing."

The smile that crossed his face was almost enough to erase the signs of fatigue that had been etched there, and she felt a thrill of excitement at the fact that she would soon see him interact with his daughter in person for the first time. _*I love you, B'Elanna,*_ he said. _*I'll see you soon.*_

Less than 24 hours later, she kissed her husband for the first time in six and a half years, and then watched him give their daughter a hug for the first time ever.


	83. 2377

Stardate 54492  
November 2377  
San Francisco, Earth

Lt. Commander B'Elanna Torres walked into the lecture hall for Comparative Systems and was immediately greeted by a wall of cadets—and a few faculty, lurking near the back—cheering and clapping and rushing to their feet. She sighed and let them have their moment as she set up her PADD.

"If you guys think this is going to get you out of lecture, you're in for a rude awakening," she finally said, waving for them to take their seats. "I hope Dr. Hospod kept you guys on track, because we're getting close to the end of the semester and we don't have any time for any more breaks. Open your texts to section 16 and let's start with the basics of hand-held phase weapons." It was a favorite of most of her students; engineering majors had to build a rudimentary hand-held phase weapon during Survival Strategies their second classman year, so by the time they took Comparative Systems as firsties, most had had hands-on experience with the subject matter and were able to pick up the nuances of differences between the different phase weapons pretty easily. She intentionally saved this unit for near the end of the course, to give them something a little simpler to learn while they were working on their final projects.

For the last 15 minutes of class, she went over the requirements—again—for the final project and the project proposals, which were due on Friday. Most of the cadets had turned in their project proposals already; she started accepting them two weeks into the course, although nobody actually got around to submitting anything until after midterms. As focused as she was on answering questions from the students, she didn't notice the officer enter from the back of the lecture hall and take a seat in the last row. It wasn't unusual for officers to drop in on classes, either to get a refresher of the subject matter or for professors to heckle their colleagues—Commander Ao was infamous in the department for that, and nobody liked teaching anything that was remotely related to disaster response or even salvage for fear that Ao would find out and drop in just to argue—and so when Torres finally realized who was sitting there, she couldn't help but smile. "Commander Paris," she said. "You're late. We went over navigational systems over a month ago."

"I got here as fast I could," he said with a grin. The cadets began whispering amongst themselves as they realized who was sitting there.

"I wasn't aware you had such an interest in Comparative Systems." She was fully aware that she was flirting with her husband in front of her class, but really didn't care. There were plenty of rumors around the Academy about what kind of professor and officer she was; let them add the fact that she was actually a person who had real connections to people—including the man she was married to—to the things the cadets gossiped about.

"I don't," he replied. "I just have an interest in the professor." One of the male cadets, she didn't see who, gave a wolf whistle at that, and she lost what little composure she had left and laughed.

"Class, Lt. Commander Tom Paris, chief helmsman of the _U.S.S. Voyager_ ," she introduced to the class. "Tom, Comparative Systems." She made a show of looking at her chronometer, and then at her students. "You have five minutes left of class. Go at it."

There was half a beat of silence, and then the roar of 70 cadets all trying to say something at once. Tom looked overwhelmed, and B'Elanna smirked at him.

That's what he got for trying to embarrass her while she was at work.

Most of the questions were indecipherable in the cacophony, and Torres was surprised—and impressed—that of the ones she could understand, she didn't hear anything inappropriate. Maybe they were all still a little afraid of her. Tom attempted to answer the questions, but every time he opened his mouth, he was drowned out by another question. "One at a time!" he finally pleaded.

"What was the inspiration for the pop-out design of the impulse thrusters on the _Delta Flyer_?" Of course it would be Shava who asked an actual engineering question; in addition to seemingly not caring about anyone's personal life—as long as it doesn't affect her—she had spent the last several months categorizing systems on _Voyager_ and the _Delta Flyer_ and was doing her final project for the course on the non-Federation components of the _Delta Flyer_. All of which came from the Delta quadrant. Most of which came from the Borg.

Tom grinned at the question. He could—and would, if given the opportunity—talk about shuttles for hours on end. "It was a Devore ship," he said. "They were horrible and xenophobic, but their ships were pretty nice. Their impulse thrusters were stowed at warp and exposed at impulse, which increases both the velocity and acceleration at sublight speeds."

"How many new species did you guys make contact with?" Cadet Cook asked quickly.

"I lost count in the second year," Tom admitted. "I'm sure Starfleet will be announcing the official tally soon. If they haven't already." He looked at B'Elanna quizzically, and she shrugged. It wasn't like she paid attention to current events even when she wasn't distracted by getting her husband back.

"What was your favorite part of the Delta quadrant?" B'Elanna didn't see which cadet asked the question.

"For the last year and a half, I got to see my wife for 20 minutes almost every week," Tom said, without hesitation and without any hint of teasing in his voice, and despite herself, B'Elanna smiled at that.

The chime went off to announce the end of class, and for probably the first time, the cadets seemed reluctant to gather their things and leave, more heading toward the rear exit than usual in hopes of being able to ask another question to the officer newly returned from exotic lands. "Shava," B'Elanna called to her cadet, interrupting the conversation between Shava and Navi. "I'll see you in the lab this afternoon?"

"Yes, sir," Shava replied. She usually spent Monday afternoons in Pathfinder, but B'Elanna was still trying to get back in the rhythm of things after being gone for two weeks.

B'Elanna wasn't sure how it happened, but Navi had invited herself to lunch with Tom and B'Elanna. It was an unseasonably nice day in San Francisco, and they came to a unanimous decision to eat in the courtyard between Scott and Sato Halls instead of the mess. "On the off chance that you guys stay on Earth next semester, are you going to come back as a flight instructor?" Navi asked Tom as she poked at her salad.

"Why? Need more craft certifications to check off your list?" Tom asked in reply. "B'Elanna says you're doing just fine on that front without my help."

"I just want to make sure I'm making the most of my time here at the Academy," Navi shot back with a smile. B'Elanna rolled her eyes.

"Maybe you should start with turning in a project proposal for the engineering course you're barely qualified to take," she pointed out, and Navi's grin widened.

"Oh, it's a good one," she said confidently. "I'm almost done with the work."

"For the project, or the proposal?" B'Elanna asked. "Because most people wait until their proposal is approved before doing the hard part."

"Since when have I done things like most people?" Navi asked.

"Your grade is not good enough to be winging it on your final project," B'Elanna said warningly. Navi just smiled and shrugged a shoulder.

A tall and gangly cadet in a red uniform approached their table, and it wasn't until Tom waved at him that B'Elanna realized he wasn't just part of the background of random cadets she was accustomed to seeing every day. In a cadet's uniform and out of the context of _Voyager_ , she hadn't recognized Icheb. _Cadet_ Icheb, she remembered. "Commander Paris, Commander Torres," Icheb greeted with a nod to each officer. He turned to Navi, an almost quizzical look on his face. "Hello," he greeted, offering his hand. "I'm Cadet Icheb."

"Navi Torres," Navi replied. She glanced at his hand and then back at his face. "No offense, but I don't shake hands," she said, her voice containing neither apology nor disdain.

"Oh," Icheb said, his hand dropping to his side. "I was under the impression it was the typical human greeting."

"I'm part Vulcan," she explained. "We keep physical contact to a minimum."

"Due to your touch telepathy," Icheb commented. Navi raised an eyebrow, and Icheb explained, "The Doctor had me study the anatomy and physiology of species we had aboard _Voyager_ , so I could serve as a medical assistant when necessary."

"Seems prudent," she remarked. She gestured at the empty chair at her table. "Have a seat."

"I don't mean to intrude," he protested. Navi shrugged.

"You're saving me from getting a lecture about my coursework from my sister. Again."

Icheb looked confused at that remark, his eyes going between the Torreses. "Half-sister," B'Elanna commented. "And you are welcome to join us."

"I thought you weren't taking courses on campus until next semester," Tom commented as Icheb finally took the offered seat.

"I'm not," Icheb replied. "Captain Janeway suggested that I familiarize myself with the campus and get to know some of my advisors, now that I can meet with them in person."

"What year are you?" Navi asked.

"Third classman," he replied.

"Same," she said. "Major?"

"I haven't declared yet," he admitted. "Commander Chakotay advised that there is no need to rush, as I have until the end of my third classman year to declare. You are majoring in the sciences?"

"Biomedical engineering," she said. "And then onto the Medical Academy. What are you _thinking_ of studying?"

"I worked in Astrometics often on _Voyager_ , but I doubt there is anything that any professor could teach me in that subject that I do not already know." B'Elanna turned to Tom at that, who was trying to hide a smirk behind his hand. "My parents were geneticists and I have studied the topic as well. How do you already know that you will be attending the Medical Academy? I thought admission required further application."

It was Navi's turn to smirk. "It does," she acknowledged, "but I'll get in."

"Assuming you don't ruin your GPA by taking an upper level engineering course as a third," B'Elanna commented. Navi rolled her eyes at her.

"What's your species?" she asked Icheb in that characteristic Betazoid bluntness. "I apologize for my lack of familiarity with peoples of the Delta quadrant."

"Brunali," he replied.

"I do research in a neurology lab," she said. "We don't have any Brunali scans, obviously, and I'm always looking for new material."

It was Tom who laughed at that. "You can't just ask people if you can scan their brains over lunch," he commented. Navi shrugged.

"Is breakfast a better meal for discussing brain scans?" she asked. She turned back to Icheb. "You don't have to, obviously. I just find brains interesting. Oh!" she said, feigning excitement as she turned to B'Elanna. "Since I haven't turned in my proposal yet, maybe I can change it. The effects of Borg technology on the humanoid nervous system!"

"Don't even think about it," B'Elanna said warningly. Navi gave her a wide grin, and she knew from that twinkle in her sister's eye that she was joking. She was concerned about what trick Navi had up her sleeve for the final project, but knew that Navi cared too much about her grades—and rightfully so, as she still had to get into medical school—to be messing around on a project that would be 40% of her grade for the course.

Tom's chronometer chimed, and he glanced down at his PADD and grimaced. "I need to get to Headquarters," he said. "Thanks for the company." He gave B'Elanna a quick kiss. "I'll see you tonight. Navi, piece of advice from someone who's had a family member as a professor: don't push it." Navi smirked in reply, undoubtedly having heard the stories of Tom's Survival Strategies course from Owen. Icheb also rose and bid his farewells to the Torreses. Tom had mentioned that they had a meeting for the _Voyager_ crew that afternoon, and was sure that was where they were heading.

Navi was still watching them thoughtfully as they walked away, and then turned back to B'Elanna. "Before I forget," she said with a grin, activating her PADD and sending a program over to B'Elanna. "My project proposal."

B'Elanna rolled her eyes, but couldn't help herself and she picked up her own PADD to read the title. "Installing a Federation biobed into a Jem'Hadar fighter," she read. "Cute."

Navi grinned. "I thought so," she said smugly. "Shava checked it out. She thinks it would have worked."

"Shava's never seen Dominion tech in person," B'Elanna pointed out.

"Doesn't mean she doesn't know the engineering," Navi shot back. She gave herself a few more seconds to gloat before she glanced over in the direction of Headquarters, where the men had faded out of view. "I think it really is time to break up with Brad," she mused. B'Elanna frowned at the non-sequitur, and then realized what Navi was implying. She chuckled as she shook her head slowly. Brad and Icheb couldn't be more different—physically, mentally, emotionally—but she had long ago stopped trying to understand why Navi was interested in the people or things that she was.

"Kahless help that poor boy."


	84. Epilogue: 2378

Stardate 55398  
November 2378  
Hawaii, Earth

It was the crying of an infant that woke Lt. Commander Tom Paris from sleep. "I got him," he grumbled, dramatically throwing off the blanket. B'Elanna murmured something next to him as she rolled over, something that sounded suspiciously like threats to throw him out of an airlock.

"No one's throwing you out of an airlock, Nate," he assured his son as he lifted the two-month-old out of the bassinet at the foot of the bed. Nate seemed unimpressed with the promise, his face red and screwed up in the expression of protest that appeared to be one of his favorite expressions, his screams reminding everyone in the apartment and probably the entire building that he had three lungs and was not afraid to use them all to full capacity.

Tom made his way to the replicator and punched in the commands, removing the bottle that appeared there a few seconds later. "Here you go, buddy," he murmured. Nate's cries stopped immediately, his full attention now focused on getting in as much nutrients as quickly as possible.

The infant otherwise occupied—for the moment—Tom glanced around, frowning as a shadowy figure out on the lanai came into focus. "It's after midnight," he informed Izzy as he stepped out to join her.

"I know," Izzy said matter-of-factly, her attention still focused on the PADD in her hands.

"Flying or soccer?" Tom asked, settling in on the lounger next to her. Izzy took her attention away from the PADD long enough to give her brother a kiss on the head and settle in against her father's side.

"Soccer," she said, turning the PADD so they could both watch. If they had been at home, he would have transferred the vid to the large monitor they had out on the deck, but he didn't mind having his daughter curled up against him so they could both watch on her PADD. He did miss their house, though, missed the two stories filled with their own furniture and giving them enough space for three people to live together without tripping over each other, missed the small holosuite where he worked on his programs, B'Elanna did her training programs, and Izzy practiced her soccer drills and flight skills. He missed the big yard, the deck with the comfortable furniture and the entertainment system and the grill, missed the park right out the front door where Izzy played soccer, the primary school less than half a kilometer to the right and the hangar less than a kilometer to the left, where they kept their two shuttles, the S-Class shuttle— _Valentina,_ Izzy had named it; she had taken her duty to name it very seriously, and after Tom informed her that shuttles were named after explorers, researched until she settled on the first name of the first human woman in space—and the larger family shuttle that they were working on restoring. The Careys were next door, and he missed the ease of hanging out on the deck with a beer and talking about nothing in particular with Joe or asking Sean to watch over Izzy for a few hours so he and B'Elanna could have a date night.

"Ainsley found it for her Sports Journalism class," Izzy informed him. "Earth used to have these really big games every four years. They called it the World's Cup or something. She found vids from the 2019 tournament."

"How'd she find that?" Tom asked, impressed. Most media from before the Third World War was lost forever.

"I dunno," Izzy replied.

"Who's playing?" As if it would make a difference; it wasn't like he knew anything about soccer in the early 21st century to know if it had been a good game or not.

"United States of America and the Netherlands," Izzy informed him. "It's the final game. She couldn't find all the games in the whole tournament, but I've watched a bunch of others. She told me I shouldn't look up who won."

"And did you?" Tom asked with a smile.

"No," she replied, "but I think it's going to be the America team. They're a lot better." A year ago, he wouldn't have been able to say one way or the other if that was true, but he had learned a lot about soccer in the last year. Commander Ford, their family counselor on Mars, had suggested that he involve himself in Izzy's activities and interests and grow a relationship from there, and he dove in headfirst. He learned about soccer, even getting certified as a referee, although he obviously couldn't ref her games. He got his flight coaching certification and was now coaching the 10 and under age groups on Izzy's new flight team. Missing her first six years, he and Izzy would never have the same kind of relationship that she and B'Elanna had, or that he and Nate would someday have, but he never wanted her to doubt that he loved her and would always try to understand the things that were important to her. "What does this mean?" she asked, pointing to the display, at a sign a spectator was holding up. _'Equal pay? Women deserve more!'_

He didn't know if she was asking what 'pay' meant, as she had lived her whole life on Earth or Mars and didn't understand that there was a whole currency-based economy just below the shiny veneer of the Federation, or if she was asking about the historical concept of that sign in particular. "I don't know," he said honestly. The early 21st century was several decades outside of his area of interest, when it came to history. It was cruder, the politics and the societies and even the entertainment showing the fissures that would soon erupt into the beginnings of the largest war Earth had ever seen. Life had been real enough for him while he was growing up, and he had craved the escape of the optimism displayed in the United States of America as they established themselves as the world power following the previous world war.

He knew he should have been encouraging her to go to bed, but just didn't have it in him. It was too nice out, and it wasn't as if they had anywhere to go or anything to do the next day that required anyone to set an alarm—as if Nate would allow anyone in the apartment sleep in to the point that they needed an alarm. He knew B'Elanna and Izzy missed Hawaii sometimes, missed the heavy humid air and the sound of the waves, and didn't feel a need to deprive Izzy of that any sooner than he had to. They would be heading out in a few days and leaving Hawaii behind; there was no harm in letting her enjoy the fresh air while she stayed up to finish watching a video of a soccer game that concluded centuries before.

It had been a year—to the day, as it was now after midnight—since _Voyager_ had docked at McKinley Station and her crew beamed down to Earth. He couldn't believe it had been that long, and simultaneously couldn't believe he had ever been away from the life he currently enjoyed, the life with the house on Mars, the job at R&D and the graduate studies he had been neglecting since parental leave started, the seven-year-old daughter who had all the best parts of both of her parents, the new baby who didn't sleep. He remembered that look on B'Elanna's face when they found out she was pregnant again, that split second of terror before the uncertain joy. He couldn't exactly blame her for that; the last time she had been pregnant, he had up and died on her and left her to raise Izzy alone. But there were no missions to the Badlands this time, nothing that took him any further away from his family than the odd trip to Earth either he or B'Elanna took. Dr. Gault had, to no one's surprise, again insisted on B'Elanna delivering at Starfleet Medical, and they decided to take the parental leave she had imagined they would have the first time around. They debated which tropical location to make their home base for their few months on Earth, and ultimately ended up in an apartment just down the beach from where B'Elanna and Izzy had lived during the Pathfinder era. For the first few weeks after Nate was born, they spent most of their time lounging around the beach, Tom helping Izzy with her school work and taking her to soccer and flight practices, and then they gradually started spending more and more time away, first with day trips and then stretches of several days around Earth, showing Izzy—and Nate, although he couldn't appreciate it—the planet that Tom had called home for most of his life.

And this would be it. The formal evening on the one-year anniversary of _Voyager_ 's return, and the much more casual gathering the next day. One for the brass, and the other for the crew. And then on Sunday, they would again leave Earth behind.

Tom checked on Nate to find him finished with the bottle and sliding into one of his rare periods of sleep. He kissed Izzy on the top of her head and adjusted her to him, and together they watched the United States of America Women's Team beat the Netherlands 2-0.

* * *

The large banquet hall at the Starfleet Conference Center was decked out for the occasion: fancy centerpieces at the table, a woodwind quartet in the corner providing background music, uniformed stewards wandering around with trays of hors d'oeuvres and flutes of champagne. "Starfleet does like a good show," B'Elanna murmured as she accepted a glass of champagne.

"Mm-hmm," Tom replied. He was already feeling antsy; these were the people he had spent more than six and a half years with, yet everything felt…wrong. It was too formal, too stuffy, with the fancy decorations and everyone in the dress uniforms or formal attire. These were the people he had laughed with, fought with, cried with, played with, _lived_ with, every minute of every day for more than six years, and dressing up and putting on a show for each other didn't feel right. _Tomorrow_ , he reminded himself, taking a glass of champagne for himself. They would have their real party the next day. This was about Starfleet. Tomorrow would be about them.

He spotted Joe and Sarah and felt himself begin to relax. "When did you guys get in?" he asked.

"Yesterday morning," Sarah replied. "And we're leaving on Sunday. My parents immediately began the guilt trip about not seeing enough of their grandsons." Joe had debated leaving Starfleet after they returned, but ultimately accepted B'Elanna's offer to be her deputy on the _Voyager_ project at UP. While she had the engineering and academic background necessary for the task of taking everything apart to learn how they had survived more than six hard years in the Delta quadrant without a Federation dry dock and reverse engineering the modifications—Borg and otherwise—that had been made, nobody knew those engines better than Joe. Sarah had been hesitant about leaving Earth for Mars, especially with Sean about ready to start secondary school, but the change had been good for them. Sean was like Joe—good with his hands, less so with the books—and if college was in his future, it would be many years off, likely after some sort of trade school. Mars didn't have the best secondary schools, but he didn't need the best secondary schools. He needed his father in his life every day, and was proving to be quite the budding mechanic as he and Joe worked on restoring a shuttle that Joe had rescued from the scrap yard. "And _gods_ , B'Elanna! There's no way you just had a baby two months ago! Is that your pre-pregnancy dress uniform?" It was; B'Elanna hadn't been sure about packing it when they left Mars, as she wasn't sure it would fit and would be able to replicate a new one in either case, but those Klingon genetics had certainly asserted themselves in her post-partum recovery. "How is Nate? _Where_ is Nate?"

"My sister is watching him," Tom answered. "Although my brother-in-law isn't happy about that. Last time she took care of one of our kids, she changed specialties, joined Starfleet, and wanted another kid."

"There's no way Jason is going to agree to a _fifth_ baby," B'Elanna protested. "At this point, worst that can happen is she decides that these kids are too much and she's done with Starfleet and goes back to being a general pediatrician." She turned back to Sarah. "Nate's a lot crankier than Izzy was. Still doesn't sleep at all, so I guess that's something our kids just don't do. Parenting is much easier this time around, though."

"Really?" Sarah asked. "I thought it was so much harder with Patrick than with Sean. Taking care of a newborn while dealing with a boy who didn't understand why he wasn't the center of my attention…"

"That's because you didn't have your kids seven years apart," B'Elanna pointed out when Sarah trailed off. "Izzy loves helping taking care of her little brother, and she's old enough to actually be able to do it. And," she said, glancing up at Tom, amused, "parenting is a lot easier when there are two parents than one."

"Good point," Sarah agreed.

Icheb entered the banquet hall with Navi on his arm, he in his cadet dress uniform and she in a dark purple evening gown that was definitely not a cadet uniform. Tom still had no idea what their relationship was; intimate enough for physical contact, which Navi usually avoided, but casual enough that he doubted even they had defined it. For the first time since he had met her, Navi responded to inquiries about it with Vulcan reticence instead of Betazoid bluntness, merely raising an eyebrow and changing the subject. Icheb just flushed and grew flustered. "Icheb. It's good to see you," Admiral Janeway greeted the cadet. "And Cadet Torres. You look lovely tonight."

"Thank you, Admiral," Navi replied with a tilt of her head.

"I told her that it would be more appropriate to be in uniform at an official Starfleet function," Icheb said quickly. Janeway looked amused.

"On the contrary," she replied. "As she's here as your date for the evening, evening dress is entirely appropriate." As expected, Icheb's cheeks brightened at the word 'date.' Navi unsuccessfully hid a smirk behind her hand. "And speaking of dates, Mr. Paris, where is your lovely wife tonight?"

Confused, Tom turned to where B'Elanna had been a minute before, to find the space now vacated. He saw her a beat later, a few meters away, talking to Lt. Susan Nicoletti, both engineers with their PADDs out and smiles on their faces. "I'm not sure if they're exchanging baby pictures or engine schematics," he joked.

"That laugh, that smile… That's definitely engine schematics," Lt. Harry Kim joked in return as he approached.

"Engineers," Tom commented with a smile. Harry chuckled and nodded in reply. "How's fatherhood treating you?"

Harry brightened, his own PADD appearing out of nowhere, pictures of his daughter at the ready. "Six months is a fun age," he said. "She's got a lot of personality. But exhausting, too. We just came off parental leave two months ago and are still adjusting. Sue and I have opposing shifts so one of us is always with Lucy. She's the senior engineer on gamma shift, I'm the ops lead on beta shift, and between work and parenting, I can't remember the last time we had more than five minutes awake and alone together." He smiled despite that. "What about you? How's Nate? Is he sleeping through the night yet?"

"I don't think he's sleeping through the _hour_ yet," Tom replied, only half joking. "I don't know if it's a Klingon thing or what, but B'Elanna says Izzy was the same way. Izz still sleeps less than I do. And has a lot more energy than I do."

"Isn't that always the way with seven-year-olds?" Harry asked. "How are you guys enjoying Mars? Itching to go back into space yet?"

"Pretty much the opposite," Tom replied. "I like having the ground beneath my feet every day, but I think B'Elanna wouldn't mind a ship assignment before Izzy starts secondary school. She thinks it'll be another year before they're done with _Voyager_ , so in the meantime, we're taking it one day at a time. And the only ship in our immediate future is the one that'll be taking us to Qo'noS on Sunday. Because my wife is important enough that the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire demanded to see our new son."

"Well, you wouldn't want to start a diplomatic incident," Harry commented.

"Who, me?" Tom asked innocently. It would be his second trip to Qo'noS; he had been surprised six months before at how much B'Elanna liked the planet and the number of friends she had there, given how little regard she had had for anything Klingon when they met. More than a year after they had reunited, he was still finding those surprises, those things that were natural to her and should have been natural to him. He knew she was still discovering the odd quirks he had picked up over the years as well. Well, at least their family counseling sessions were always entertaining.

They toasted to surviving a year back home, they toasted to their crewmates who couldn't make it to San Francisco that night, and they toasted to the crewmates who hadn't survived the journey. They ate dinner, they danced, they talked some more. Sam and Greskrendtregk came by to ask him to pass along their thanks—again—to Ainsley for keeping Naomi occupied on a holophotography lesson with Izzy, and they again made vague promises about visiting Ktaris. The Doctor cornered him to talk about holoprograms and how to get them published. Neelix had questions about Ethiopian cuisine, and Tom couldn't figure out why he thought he would be the person to ask.

Tom had always been the extrovert of their relationship, the one who could handle those social gatherings, but he couldn't deny the rush of relief he felt when they stepped out of the transport station in Hawaii and made their way back to their temporary home and their children. Part of it had been the strange atmosphere, but most of it was just relief that he could be alone together with his family again. He and B'Elanna had married young, too young to fully understand the vows they had made to each other and what those would mean, and they both had taken the other for granted in those few months they had together before he left on _Voyager._ His _Voyager_ crewmates would always be a family to him—and B'Elanna and Sarah liked to joke that Joe and Tom made a better married couple than either actual married couple—but it had taken a lot of fight to get the family they had just started when he left back together, and a lot of fight to keep it together. He would never be able to repay B'Elanna for the things she had done and the sacrifices she had made to get him back home, but in a way, those years apart was their second chance to start a life together. They had both grown up—a lot—in those years, each in ways that the other would never fully understand, but both wanted to, and over the last year, they had learned how to navigate those changes in a way that made sense to them. It hadn't always been an easy year, learning how the three, and then the _four_ , of them all fit together, but now, after a year of getting to wake up next to his wife almost every morning, seeing his daughter almost every day, being there for the birth of his son, he knew he could never take it for granted again.


End file.
